iT3 


THE  PRAIRIE  WIFE 


THE 
PRAIRIE  WIFE 

By  ARTHUR  STRINGER 


A.  L.  BURT  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  -  -  NEW  YORK 

Published  by  Arrangement  with  The  Bobbs,  Merrill  Company 


COPTUOBtT  1916 

Thi  Cuetis  Publishiko  CoMPAinr 


CoFraiOHT  1915 
Tbb  Bobbs-Mebaill  Compaht 


TO  VAN 

WHO  KNOWS  AND  LOVES 

THE  WEST 

AS  WE  LOVE  HIM  I 


M18903 


THE  PRAIRIE  WIFE 


THE  PRAIRIE  WIFE 

Thursday  the  Nineteenth 

Splash  !  .  .  .  That's  me,  Matilda  Anne !  That's 
me  falling  plump  into  the  pool  of  matrimony  before 
I've  had  time  to  fall  in  love!  And  oh,  Matilda 
Anne,  Matilda  Anne,  I've  got  to  talk  to  you !  You 
may  be  six  thousand  miles  away,  but  still  you've 
got  to  be  my  safety-valve.  I'd  blow  up  and  explode 
if  I  didn't  express  myself  to  some  one.  For  it's 
so  lonesome  out  here  I  could  go  and  commune  with 
the  gophers.  This  isn't  a  twenty-part  letter,  my 
dear,  and  it  isn't  a  diary.  It's  the  coral  ring  I'm 
cutting  mv  teeth  of  desolation  on.  For,  every  so 
long,  I've  simply  got  to  sit  down  and  talk  to  some 
one,  or  I'd  go  mad,  clean,  stark,  staring  mad,  and 
bite  the  tops  off  the  sweet-grass !  It  may  even  hap- 
pen this  will  never  be  sent  to  you.  But  I  like  to 
think  of  you  reading  it,  some  day,  page  by  page, 

1 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

when  I'm  fat  and  forty,  or,  what's  more  likely, 
when  Duncan  has  me  chained  to  a  corral-post  or 
finally  shut  up  in  a  padded  cell.  For  you  were  the 
one  who  was  closest  to  me  in  the  old  days,  Matilda 
Anne,  and  when  I  was  in  trouble  you  were  always 
the  staff  on  which  I  leaned,  the  calm-eyed  Tillie- 
on-the-spot  who  never  seemed  to  fail  me!  And  I 
think  you  will  understand. 

But  there's  so  much  to  talk  about  I  scarcely  know 
where  to  begin.  The  funny  part  of  it  all  is,  I've 
gone  and  married  the  Other  Man,  And  you  won't 
understand  that  a  bit,  unless  I  start  at  the  begin- 
ning. But  when  I  look  back,  there  doesn't  seem 
to  be  any  beginning,  for  it's  only  in  books  that 
things  really  begin  and  end  in  a  single  lifetime. 

Howsomever,  as  Chinkie  used  to  say,  when  I  left 
you  and  Scheming  Jack  in  that  funny  little  stone 
house  of  yours  in  Corfu,  and  got  to  Palermo,  1 
found  Lady  Agatha  and  Chinkie  there  at  the  Hotel 
des  Palmes  and  the  yacht  being  coaled  from  a  tramp 
steamer's  bunkers  in  the  harbor.  So  I  went  on 
with  them  to  Monte  Carlo.    We  had  a  terrible  trip 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

all  the  way  up  to  the  Riviera,  and  I  was  terribly 
sea-sick,  and  those  lady  novelists  who  love  to  get 
their  heroines  off  on  a  private  yacht  never  dream 
that  in  anything  but  duckpond  weather  the  or- 
dinary yacht  at  sea  is  about  the  meanest  habita- 
tion between  Heaven  and  earth.  But  it  was  at 
Monte  Carlo  I  got  the  cable  from  Uncle  Carlton 
telling  me  the  Chilean  revolution  had  wiped  out 
our  nitrate  mine  concessions  and  that  your  poor 
Tabby's  last  little  nest-egg  had  been  smashed.  In 
other  words,  I  woke  up  and  found  myself  a  beg- 
gar, and  for  a  few  hours  I  even  thought  I'd  have 
to  travel  home  on  that  Monte  Carlo  Viaticum  fund 
which  so  discreetly  ships  away  the  stranded  adven- 
turer before  he  musses  up  the  Mediterranean  scen- 
ery by  shooting  himself.  Then  I  remembered  my 
letter  of  credit,  and  firmly  but  sorrowfully  paid 
off  poor  Hortense,  who  through  her  tears  pro- 
claimed that  she'd  go  with  me  anywhere,  and  with- 
out any  thought  of  wages  (imagine  being  hooked 
up  by  a  maid  to  whom  you  were  under  such  democ- 
ratizing obligations !)    But  I  was  firm,  for  I  knew 

d 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

the  situation  might  just  as  well  be   faced  first 
as  last. 

So  I  counted  up  my  letter  of  credit  and  found 
I  had  exactly  six  hundred  and  seventy-one  dollars, 
American  money,  between  me  and  beggary.  Then 
I  sent  a  cable  to  Theobald  Gustav  (so  condensed 
that  he  thought  it  was  code)  and  later  on  found 
that  he'd  been  sending  flowers  and  chocolates  all 
the  while  to  the  Hotel  de  L'Athenee,  the  long  boxes 
duly  piled  up  in  tiers,  like  coffins  at  the  morgue. 
Then  Theobald's  aunt,  the  baroness,  called  on  me, 
in  state.  She  came  in  that  funny,  old-fashioned, 
shallow  landau  of  hers,  where  she  looked  for  all 
the  world  like  an  oyster-on-the-half-shell,  and  spoke 
so  pointedly  of  the  danger  of  international  mar- 
riages that  I  felt  sure  she  was  trying  to  shoo  me 
away  from  my  handsome  and  kingly  Theobald 
Gustav — ^which  made  me  quite  calmly  and  solemnly 
tell  her  that  I  intended  to  take  Theobald  out  of 
under-secretaryships,  which  really  belonged  to  Op- 
penheim  romances,  and  put  him  in  the  shoe  busi- 
ness in  some  nice  New  England  town! 

4 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

From  Monte  Carlo  I  scooted  right  up  to  Paris. 
Two  days  later,  as  I  intended  to  write  you  but 
didn't,  I  caught  the  boat-train  for  Cherbourg.  And 
there  at  the  rail  as  I  stepped  on  the  Baltic  was  the 
Other  Man,  to  wit,  Duncan  Argyll  McKail,  in  a 
most  awful-looking  yeUow  plaid  English  mackin- 
tosh. His  face  went  a  little  blank  as  he  clapped 
eyes  on  me,  for  he'd  dropped  up  to  Banff  last 
October  when  Chinkie  and  Lady  Agatha  and  I  were 
there  for  a  week.  He'd  been  very  nice,  that  week 
at  Banff,  and  I  Hked  him  a  lot.  But  when  Chinkie 
saw  him  "going  it  a  bit  too  strong,"  as  he  put 
it,  and  quietly  tipped  Duncan  Argyll  off  as  to 
Theobald  Gustav,  the  aforesaid  D.  A.  bolted  back 
to  his  ranch  without  as  much  as  saying  good-by 
to  me.  For  Duncan  Argyll  McKail  isn't  an  Irish- 
man, as  you  might  in  time  gather  from  that  name 
of  his.  He's  a  Scotch-Canadian,  and  he's  nothing 
but  a  broken-down  civil  engineer  who's  taken  up 
farming  in  the  Northwest.  But  I  could  see  right 
away  that  he  was  a  gentleman  (I  hate  that  word, 
but  where'll  you  get  another  one  to  take  its  place?) 

5 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

and  had  known  nice  people,  even  before  I  found 
out  he'd  taught  the  Duchess  of  S.  to  shoot  big-horn. 
He'd  run  over  to  England  to  finance  a  cooperative 
wheat-growing  scheme,  but  had  failed,  because 
everything  is  so  unsettled  in  England  just  now. 

But  you're  a  woman,  and  before  I  go  any  fur- 
ther you'll  want  to  know  what  Duncan  looks  like. 

Well,  he's  not  a  bit  like  his  name.  The  West  has 
shaken  a  good  deal  of  the  Covenanter  out  of  him* 
He's  tall  and  gaunt  and  wide- shouldered,  and  has 
brown  eyes  with  hazel  specks  in  them,  and  a  mouth 
exactly  like  Holbein's  "Astronomer's,"  and  a  skin 
that  is  almost  as  disgracefully  brown  as  an  In- 
dian's. On  the  whole,  if  a  Lina  Cavalieri  had  hap- 
pened to  marry  a  Lord  Kitchener,  and  had  hap- 
pened to  have  a  thirty-year-old  son,  I  feel  quite 
sure  he'd  have  been  the  dead  spit,  as  the  Irish 
say,  of  my  own  Duncan  Argyll.  And  Duncan  Ar- 
gyll, alias  Dinky-Dunk,  is  rather  reserved  and 
quiet  and,  I'm  afraid,  rather  masterful,  but  not  as 
Theobald  Gustav  might  have  been,  for  with  all 
his  force  the  modem  German,  it  seems  to  me,  is 

6 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

like  the  bagpipes  in  being  somewhat  lacking  Ia 
suavity. 

And  all  the  way  over  Dinky-Dunk  was  so  nice 
that  he  almost  took  my  breath  away.  He  was  also 
rather  audacious,  gritting  his  teeth  in  the  face  of 
the  German  peril,  and  I  got  to  like  him  so  much 
I  secretly  decided  we'd  always  be  good  friends,  old- 
fashioned,  above-board,  Platonic  good  friends.  But 
the  trouble  with  Platonic  love  is  that  it's  always 
turning  out  too  nice  to  be  Platonic,  or  too  Platonic 
to  be  nice.  So  I  had  to  look  straight  at  the  bosom 
of  that  awful  yellow-plaid  English  mackintosh  and 
tell  Dinky-Dunk  the  truth.  And  Dinky-Dunk  lis- 
tened, with  his  astronomer  mouth  set  rather  grim, 
and  otherwise  not  in  the  least  put  out.  His  sense 
of  confidence  worried  me.  It  was  like  the  quietness 
of  the  man  who  is  holding  back  his  trump.  And 
it  wasn't  until  the  impossible  little  wife  of  an  im- 
possible big  lumberman  from  Saginaw,  Michigan^ 
showed  me  the  Paris  Herald  with  the  cable  in 
it  about  that  spidery  Russian  stage-dancer^ 
C ,  getting  so  nearly  killed  in  Theobald^ 

i 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

car  down  at  Long  Beach,  that  I  realized  there  WOM 
a  trump  card  and  that  Dinky-Dunk  had  been  toff 
manly  to  play  it. 

I  had  a  lot  of  thinking  to  do,  the  next  three  days. 

When  Theobald  came  on  from  Washington  and 
met  the  steamer  my  conscience  troubled  me  and  I 
should  still  have  been  kindness  itself  to  him,  if  it 
hadn't  been  for  his  proprietary  manner  (which,  by 
the  way,  had  never  annoyed  me  before),  coupled 
with  what  I  already  knew.  We  had  luncheon  in 
the  Delia  Robbia  room  at  the  Vanderbilt  and  I  was 
digging  the  marrons  out  of  a  Nesselrode  when, 
presto,  it  suddenly  came  over  me  that  the  baroness 
was  right  and  that  I  could  never  marry  a  foreigner. 
It  came  like  a  thunderclap.  But  somewhere  in  that 
senate  of  instinct  which  debates  over  such  things 
down  deep  in  the  secret  chambers  of  our  souls,  I 
suppose,  the  whole  problem  had  been  talked  over 
and  fought  out  and  put  to  the  vote.  And  in  the 
face  of  the  fact  that  Theobald  Gustav  had  always 
seemed  more  nearly  akin  to  one  of  Ouida's  demi- 
gods than  any  man  I  had  ever  known,  the  vote  had 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

gone  against  him.  My  hero  was  no  longer  a  hero* 
I  knew  there  had  been  times,  of  course,  when  that 
hero,  being  a  German,  had  rather  regarded  this 
universe  of  ours  as  a  department-store  and  this 
earth  as  the  particular  section  over  which  the 
August  Master  had  appointed  him  floor-walker.  I 
had  thought  of  him  as  my  Eisenfresser  and  my  big 
blond  Saehierassler.  But  my  eyes  opened  with  my 
last  marron  and  I  suddenly  sat  back  and  stared 
at  Theobald's  handsome  pink  face  with  its  Krupp- 
steel  blue  eyes  and  its  haughtily  upturned  mus- 
tache-ends. He  must  have  seen  that  look  of  ap- 
praisal on  my  own  face,  for,  with  all  his  iron-and- 
blood  Prussianism,  he  clouded  up  like  a  hurt  child. 
But  he  was  too  much  of  a  diplomat  to  show  hig 
feelings.  He  merely  became  so  unctuously  polite 
that  I  felt  like  poking  him  in  his  steel-blue  eye  with 
my  mint  straw. 

Remember,  Matilda  Anne,  not  a  word  was  said, 
not  one  syllable  about  what  was  there  in  both  our 
souls.  Yet  it  was  one  of  life's  biggest  moments,  the 
Great  Divide  of  a  whole  career — and  I  went  on  eat- 

9 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

mg  Nesselrode  and  Theobald  went  on  pleasantif 
smoking  his  cigarette  and  approvingly  inspecting 
his  well-manicured  nails. 

It  was  funny,  but  it  made  me  feel  blue  and  un- 
attached and  terribly  alone  in  the  world.  Now,  I 
can  see  things  more  clearly.  I  know  that  mood  of 
mine  was  not  the  mere  child  of  caprice.  Looking 
back,  I  can  see  how  Theobald  had  been  more  critical, 
more  silently  combative,  from  the  moment  I  stepped 
off  the  Baltic,  I  realized,  all  at  once,  that  he  had 
secretly  been  putting  me  to  a  strain,  I  won't  say 
it  was  because  my  dot  had  gone  with  The  Nitrate 
Mines,  or  that  he  had  discovered  that  Duncan  had 
crossed  on  the  same  steamer  with  me,  or  that  he 

knew  I'd  soon  hear  of  the  L episode.  But  these 

prophetic  bones  of  mine  told  me  there  was  trouble 
ahead.  And  I  felt  so  forsaken  and  desolate  in  spirit 
that  when  Duncan  whirled  me  out  to  Westbury,  in 
a  hired  motor-car,  to  see  the  Great  Neck  First  de- 
feated by  the  Meadow  Brook  Hunters,  I  went  with 
the  happy-go-lucky  glee  of  a  truant  who  doesn't 
^ve  a  hang  what  happens.     Dinky-Dunk  was  in- 

le 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

terested  in  polo  ponies,  which,  he  explained  to  me, 
are  not  a  particular  breed  but  just  come  along  by 
accident — for  he'd  bred  and  sold  mounts  to  the  Cor- 
onado  and  San  Mateo  Clubs  and  the  Philadelphia 
City  Cavalry  boys.  And  he  loved  the  game.  He 
was  so  genuine  and  sincere  and  human,  as  we  sat 
there  side  by  side,  that  I  wasn't  a  bit  afraid  of  him 
and  knew  we  could  be  chums  and  didn't  mind  his 
lapses  into  silence  or  his  extension-sole  English 
shoes  and  crazy  London  cravat. 

And  I  was  happy,  until  the  school-bell  rang — 
which  took  the  form  of  Theobald's  telephone  mes- 
sage to  the  Ritz  reminding  me  of  our  dinner  en- 
gagement. It  was  an  awful  dinner,  for  intuitively 
I  knew  what  was  coming,  and  quite  as  intuitively  he 
knew  what  was  coming,  and  even  the  waiter  knew 
when  it  came, — for  I  flung  Theobald's  ring  right 
against  his  stately  German  chest.  There'd  be  no 
good  in  telling  you,  Matilda  Anne,  what  led  up  to 
that  most  unlady-like  action.  I  don't  intend  to  burn 
incense  in  front  of  myself.  It  may  have  looked 
wrong.   But  I  know  you'll  take  my  word  when  I  say 

11 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

he  deserved  it.  The  one  thing  that  hurts  is  that  he 
had  the  triumph  of  being  the  first  to  sever  diplo- 
matic relations.  In  the  language  of  Shorty  Mc- 
Cabe  and  my  fellow  countrymen,  he  threw  me  down! 
Twenty  minutes  later,  after  composing  my  soul 
and  powdering  my  nose,  I  was  telephoning  all  over 
the  city  trying  to  find  Duncan.  I  got  him  at  last, 
and  he  came  to  the  Ritz  on  the  run.  Then  we  picked 
up  a  residuary  old  horse-hansom  on  Fifth  Avenue 
and  went  rattling  off  through  Central  Park.  There 
I — ^who  once  boasted  of  seven  proposals  and  three 
times  that  number  of  nibbles — promptly  and 
shamelessly  proposed  to  my  Dinky-Dunk,  though 
he  is  too  much  of  a  gentleman  not  to  swear  it's  a 
horrid  lie  and  that  he'd  have  fought  through  an 
acre  of  Greek  fire  to  get  me ! 

But  whatever  happened.  Count  Theobald  Gustar 
Von  Guntner  threw  me  down,  and  Dinky-Dunk 
caught  me  on  the  bounce,  and  now  instead  of  going 
to  embassy  balls  and  talking  world-politics  like  a 
Mr«.  Humphry  Ward  heroine  I've  married  a  shack- 
le 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

owner  who  grows  wheat  up  in  the  Canadian  North- 
west. And  instead  of  wearing  a  tiara  in  the  Grand 
Tier  at  the  Metropohtan  I'm  up  here  a  dot  on  the 
prairie  and  wearing  an  apron  made  of  butcher's 
linen!  Sv/rsum  cor  da!  For  I'm  still  in  the  ring. 
And  it's  no  easy  thing  to  fall  in  love  and  land  on 
your  feet.  But  I've  gone  and  done  it.  I've  taken 
the  high  jump.  I've  made  my  bed,  as  Uncle  Carlton 
had  the  nerve  to  tell  me,  and  now  I've  got  to  lie  in 
it.    But  assez  d*Etr angers! 

That  wedding-day  of  mine  I'll  always  remember 
as  a  day  of  smells,  the  smell  of  the  pew-cushions  in 
the  empty  church,  the  smell  of  the  lilies-of-the- 
valley,  that  dear,  sweet,  scatter-brained  Fanny- 
Rain-In-The-Face  (she  rushed  to  town  an  hour 
after  getting  my  wire)  insisted  on  carrying,  the 
smell  of  the  leather  in  the  damp  taxi,  the  tobaccoy 
smell  of  Dinky-Dunk's  quite  impossible  best  man, 
who'd  been  picked  up  at  the  hotel,  on  the  fly,  to 
act  as  a  witness,  and  the  smell  of  Dinky-Dunk's 
brand  new  gloves  as  he  lifted  my  chin  and  kissed 
13 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

me  in  that  slow,  tender,  tragic,  end-of-the-worid 
way  big  and  bashful  men  sometimes  have  with 
women.    It's  all  a  jumble  of  smells. 

Then  Dinky-Dunk  got  the  wire  saying  he  might 
lose  his  chance  on  the  Stuart  Ranch,  if  he  didn't 
close  before  the  Calgary  interests  got  hold  of  it. 
And  Dinky-Dunk  wanted  that  ranch.  So  we  talked 
it  over  and  in  five  minutes  had  given  up  the  idea 
of  going  down  to  Aiken  and  were  telephoning  for 
the  stateroom  on  the  Montreal  Express.  I  had  just 
four  hours  for  shopping,  scurrying  about  after 
cook-books  and  golf-boots  and  table-linen  and  a 
chafing  dish,  and  a  lot  of  other  absurd  things  I 
thought  we'd  need  on  the  ranch.  And  then  off  we 
flew  for  the  West,  before  poor,  extravagant,  ecstatic 
Dinky-Dunk's  thirty-six  wedding  orchids  from 
Thorley's  had  faded  and  before  I'd  a  chance  to 
show  Fanny  my  nighties ! 

Am  I  crazy?  Is  it  all  wrong?  Do  I  love  my 
Dinky-Dunk  ?  Do  I  ?  The  Good  Lord  only  knows, 
Matilda  Anne!  O  God,  O  God,  if  it  should  turn 
out  that  I  don't,  that  I  can't?    But  I'm  going  to! 

14 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

I  know  I'm  going  to!  And  there's  one  other 
thing  that  I  know,  and  when  I  remember  it, 
it  sends  a  comfy  warm  wave  through  all  my  body : 
Dinky-Dunk  loves  me.  He's  as  mad  as  a  hatter 
about  me.  He  deserves  to  be  loved  back.  And  I'm 
going  to  love  him  back.  That  is  a  vow  I  here- 
with duly  register.  Fm  going  to  love  my  Dinky- 
Dunk.  But,  oh,  isn't  it  wonderful  to  wake  love  In 
a  man,  in  a  strong  man  ?  To  be  able  to  sweep  him 
off,  that  way,  on  a  tidal  wave  that  leaves  him 
rather  white  and  shaky  in  the  voice  and  trembly 
in  the  fingers,  and  seems  to  light  a  little  luminous 
fire  at  the  back  of  his  eyeballs  so  that  you  can  see 
the  pupils  glow,  the  same  as  an  animal's  when  your 
motor  head-lights  hit  them !  It's  like  taking  a  little 
match  and  starting  a  prairie-fire  and  watching  the 
flames  creep  and  spread  until  the  heavens  are  roar- 
ing! I  wonder  if  I'm  selfish?  I  wonder?  But  I 
can't  answer  that  now,  for  it's  supper  time,  and 
your  Tabby  has  the  grub  to  rustle ! 


15 


Saturday  the  Twenty-first 

I'm  alone  in  the  shack  to-night,  and  I'm  deter- 
mined not  to  think  about  my  troubles.  So  I'm 
going  to  write  you  a  ream,  Matilda  Anne,  whether 
you  like  it  or  not.  And  I  must  begin  by  telling  you 
about  the  shack  itself,  and  how  I  got  here.  All  the 
way  out  from  Montreal  Dinky-Dunk,  in  his  kindly 
way,  kept  doing  his  best  to  key  me  down  and  make 
me  not  expect  too  much.  But  I'd  hold  his  hand, 
under  the  magazine  I  was  pretending  to  read,  and 
whistle  Home,  Sweet  Home!  He  kept  saying  it 
would  be  hard,  for  the  first  year  or  two,  and  there 
would  be  a  terrible  number  of  things  I'd  be  sure 
to  miss.  Love  Me  and  The  World  is  Mine!  I 
hummed,  as  I  leaned  over  against  his  big  wide 
shoulder.  And  I  lay  there  smiling  and  happy, 
blind  to  everything  that  was  before  me,  and  I  only 
laughed  when  Dinky-Dunk  asked  me  if  I'd  still 
16 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

say  that  when  I  found  there  wasn't  a  nutmeg-grater 
within  seven  miles  of  my  kitchen. 

"Do  you  love  me?"  I  demanded,  hanging  on  to 
him  right  in  front  of  the  car-porter. 

"I  love  you  better  than  anything  else  in  all  this 
wide  world !"  was  his  slow  and  solemn  answer. 

When  we  left  Winnipeg,  too,  he  tried  to  tell  me 
what  a  plain  little  shack  we'd  have  to  put  up  with 
for  a  year  or  two,  and  how  it  wouldn't  be  much 
better  than  camping  out,  and  how  he  knew  I  was 
clear  grit  and  would  help  him  win  that  first  year't 
battle.  There  was  nothing  depressing  to  me  in  the 
thought  of  life  in  a  prairie-shack.  I  never  knew,  of 
course,  just  what  it  would  be  like,  and  had  no  way 
of  knowing.  I  remembered  Chinkie's  little  love  of  a 
farm  in  Sussex,  and  I'd  been  a  week  at  the  West- 
bury's  place  out  on  Long  Island,  with  its  terraced 
lawns  and  gardens  and  greenhouses  and  macadam- 
ized roads.  And,  on  the  whole,  I  expected  a  cross 
between  a  shooting-box  and  a  Swiss  chalet,  a  little 
nest  of  a  home  that  was  so  small  it  was  sure  to  be 
lovable,  with  a  rambler-rose  draping  the  front  and 

17 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

a  crystal  spring  bubbling  at  the  back  door,  a  little 
flowery  island  on  the  prairie  where  we  could  play 
Swiss-Family-Robinson  and  sally  forth  to  shoot 
prairie-chicken  and  ruffed  grouse  to  our  hearts' 
content. 

Well,  that  shack  wasn't  quite  what  I  expected! 
But  I  mustn't  run  ahead  of  my  story,  Matilda 
Anne,  so  I'll  go  back  to  where  Dinky-Dunk  and  I 
got  off  the  side-line  "accommodation"  at  Buckhorn, 
with  our  traps  and  trunks  and  hand-bags  and  suit- 
cases. And  these  had  scarcely  been  piled  on  the 
wooden  platform  before  the  station-agent  came 
running  up  to  Duncan  with  a  yellow  sheet  in  his 
hand.  And  Duncan  looked  worried  as  he  read  it, 
and  stopped  talking  to  his  man  called  Olie,  who  was 
there  beside  the  platform,  in  a  big,  sweat-stained 
Stetson  hat,  with  a  big  team  hitched  to  a  big  wagon 
with  straw  in  the  bottom  of  the  box. 

Olie,  I  at  once  told  myself,  was  a  Swede.     He 

was  one  of  the  ugliest  men  I  ever  clapped  eyes  on, 

but  I  found  out  afterward  that  his  face  had  been 

frozen  in  a  blizzard,  years  before,  and  his  nose 

18 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

had  split.  This  had  disfigured  him — and  the  job 
had  been  done  for  life.  His  eyes  were  big  and 
pale  blue,  and  his  hair  and  eyebrows  were  a  pale 
yellow.  He  was  the  most  silent  man  I  ever  saw. 
But  Dinky-Dunk  had  already  told  me  he  was  a 
great  worker,  and  a  fine  fellow  at  heart.  And  when 
Dinky-Dunk  says  he'd  trust  a  man,  through  thick 
and  thin,  there  must  be  something  good  in  that 
man,  no  matter  how  bulbous  his  nose  is  or  how 
scared-looking  he  gets  when  a  woman  speaks  to 
him.  Olie  looked  more  scared  than  ever  when  Dinky- 
Dunk  suddenly  ran  to  where  the  train-conductor 
was  standing  beside  his  car-steps,  asked  him  to  hold 
that  "accommodation"  for  half  a  minute,  pulled  his 
suit-case  from  under  my  pile  of  traps,  and  grabbed 
little  me  in  his  arms. 

"Quick,"  he  said,  "good-by !  I've  got  to  go  on 
to  Calgary.  There's  trouble  about  my  registra- 
tions!" 

I  hung  on  to  him  for  dear  life.  "You're  not 
going  to  leave  me  here,  Dinky-Dunk,  in  the  middle 
of  this  wilderness  ?"  I  cried  out,  while  the  conductor 

19 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

and  brakeman  and  station-agent  all  called  and  kol- 
loed  and  clamored  for  Duncan  to  hurry. 

"Olie  will  take  you  home,  beloved,"  Dinky-Dunk 
tried  to  assure  me.  "You'll  be  there  by  midnight, 
and  I'll  be  back  by  Saturday  evening !" 

I  began  to  bawl.  "Don't  go !  Don't  leave  me !" 
I  begged  him.  But  the  conductor  simply  tore  him 
out  of  my  arms  and  pushed  him  aboard  the  tail-end 
of  the  last  car.  I  made  a  face  at  a  fat  man  who 
was  looking  out  a  window  at  me.  I  stood  there,  as 
the  train  started  to  move,  feeling  that  it  was  drag- 
ging my  heart  with  it. 

Then  Dinky-Dunk  called  out  to  Olie,  from  the 
back  platform :  "Did  you  get  my  message  and  paint 
that  shack.'"'  And  Olie,  with  my  steamer-rug  in  his 
hand,  only  looked  blank  and  called  back  "No."  But 
I  don't  believe  Dinky-Dunk  even  heard  him,  for  he 
was  busy  throwing  kisses  at  me.  I  stood  there,  at 
the  edge  of  the  platform,  watching  that  lonely  last 
car-end  fade  down  into  the  lonely  sky-line.  Then  I 
mopped  my  eyes,  took  one  long  quavery  breath,  and 
said  out  loud,  as  Birdalone  Pebbley  said  Shiner  did 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

when  he  was  lying  wounded  on  the  field  of  Magers- 
fontein:  *' Squealer,  squealer,  who^s  a  squealer?^* 

I  found  the  big  wagon-box  filled  with  our  things 
and  Olie  sitting  there  waiting,  viewing  me  with 
wordless  yet  respectful  awe.  Olie,  in  fact,  has  never 
yet  got  used  to  me.  He's  a  fine  chap,  in  his  rough 
and  inarticulate  way,  and  there's  nothing  he 
wouldn't  do  for  me.  But  I'm  a  novelty  to  him. 
His  pale  blue  eyes  look  frightened  and  he  blushes 
when  I  speak  to  him.  And  he  studies  me  secretly, 
as  though  I  were  a  dromedary,  or  an  archangel,  or 
a  mechanical  toy  whose  inner  mechanism  perplexed 
him.  But  yesterday  I  found  out  through  Dinky- 
Dunk  what  the  probable  secret  of  Olie's  mystifica- 
tion was.  It  was  my  hat.  "It  ban  so  dam'  foolish  1" 
he  fervently  confessed. 

That  wagon-ride  from  Buckhorn  out  to  the  ranch 
seemed  endless.  I  thought  we  were  trekking  clear 
up  to  the  North  Pole.  At  first  there  was  what 
you  might  call  a  road,  straight  and  worn  deep,  be- 
tween parallel  lines  of  barb-wire  fencing.  But  this 
road  soon  melted  into  nothing  more  than  a  trail, 
21 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

a  never-ending  gently  curving  trail  that  ribboned 
out  across  the  prairie-floor  as  far  as  the  eye  could 
see.  It  was  a  glorious  afternoon,  one  of  those  opa- 
line, blue-arched  autumn  days  when  it  should  have 
been  a  joy  merely  to  be  alive.  But  I  was  in  an  an- 
tagonistic mood,  and  the  little  cabin-like  farm- 
houses that  every  now  and  then  stood  up  against 
the  sky-line  made  me  feel  lonesome,  and  the  jolting 
of  the  heavy  wagon  made  me  tired,  and  by  six 
o'clock  I  was  so  hungry  that  my  ribs  ached.  We 
had  been  on  the  trail  then  almost  five  hours,  and 
Olie  calmly  informed  me  it  was  only  a  few  hours 
more.  It  got  quite  cool  as  the  sun  went  down,  and 
I  had  to  undo  my  steamer-rug  and  get  wrapped 
up  in  it.  And  still  we  went  on.  It  seemed  like 
being  at  sea,  with  a  light  now  and  then,  miles  and 
miles  away.  Something  howled  dismally  in  the  dis- 
tance, and  gave  me  the  creeps.  Olie  told  me  it  was 
only  a  coyote.  But  we  kept  on,  and  my  ribs  ached 
worse  than  ever. 

Then  I  gave  a  shout  that  nearly  frightened  Olie 
off  the  seat,  for  I  remembered  the  box  of  chocolates 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

we'd  had  on  the  train.  We  stopped  and  found  my 
hand-bag,  and  lighted  matches  and  looked  through 
it.  Then  I  gave  a  second  and  more  dismal  shout,  for 
I  remembered  Dinky-Dunk  had  crammed  it  into  his 
suit-case  at  the  last  moment.  Then  we  went  on 
again,  with  me  a  squaw-woman  all  wrapped  in  her 
blanket.  I  must  have  fallen  asleep,  for  I  woke  with 
a  start.  Olie  had  stopped  at  a  slough  to  water  his 
team,  and  said  we'd  make  home  in  another  hour  or 
two.  How  he  found  his  way  across  that  prairie 
Heaven  only  knows.  I  no  longer  worried.  I  was 
too  tired  to  think.  The  open  air  and  the  swaying 
and  jolting  had  chloroformed  me  into  insensibility. 
Olie  could  have  driven  over  the  edge  of  a  canyon 
and  I  should  never  have  stopped  him. 

Instead  of  falling  into  a  canyon,  however,  at  ex- 
actly ten  minutes  to  twelve  we  pulled  up  beside  the 
shack  door,  which  had  been  left  unlocked,  and  Olie 
went  in  and  lighted  a  lamp  and  touched  a  match  to 
the  fire  already  laid  in  the  stove.  I  don't  remember 
getting  down  from  the  wagon  seat  and  I  don't  re- 
member going  into  the  shack.    But  when  Olie  came 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

from  putting  in  his  team  I  was  fast  asleep  on  a 
luxurious  divan  made  of  a  rather  smelly  steer-hide 
stretched  across  two  slim  cedar-trees  on  four  little 
cedar  legs,  with  a  bag  full  of  pine  needles  at  the 
head.  I  lay  there  watching  Olie,  in  a  sort  of  torpor. 
It  surprised  me  how  quickly  his  big  ungainly  body 
could  move,  and  how  adept  those  big  sunburned 
hands  of  his  could  be. 

Then  sharp  as  an  arrow  through  a  velvet  curtain 
came  the  smell  of  bacon  through  my  drowsiness. 
And  it  was  a  heavenly  odor.  I  didn't  even  wash.  I 
ate  bacon  and  eggs  and  toasted  biscuits  and  orange 
marmalade  and  coffee,  the  latter  with  condensed 
milk,  which  I  hate.  I  don't  know  how  I  got  to  my 
bed,  or  got  my  clothes  off,  or  where  the  worthy 
Olie  slept,  or  who  put  out  the  light,  or  if  the  door 
had  been  left  open  or  shut.  I  never  knew  that  the 
bed  was  hard,  or  that  the  coyotes  were  howling.  I 
only  know  that  I  slept  for  ten  solid  hours,  without 
turning  over,  and  that  when  I  opened  my  eyes  I 
saw  a  big  square  of  golden  sunlight  dancing  on  the 
unpainted  pine  boards  of  the  shack  wall.    And  the 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

funny  part  of  it  aU  was,  Matilda  Anne,  I  didn't 
have  the  splitting  headache  I'd  so  dolorously  proph- 
esied for  myself.  Instead  of  that  I  felt  buoyant. 
I  started  to  sing  as  I  pulled  on  my  stockings.  And^ 
I  suddenly  remembered  that  I  was  terribly  hungry; 
again, 

I  swung  open  the  window  beside  me,  for  il  was  on 
hinges,  and  poked  my  head  out.  I  could  see  a 
corral,  and  a  long  low  building  which  I  took  to 
be  the  ranch  stables,  and  another  and  newer-looking 
building  with  a  metal  roof,  and  several  stacks  of 
hay  surrounded  by  a  fence,  and  a  row  of  portable 
granaries.  And  beyond  these  stretched  the  open 
prairie,  limitless  and  beautiful  in  the  clear  morn- 
ing sunshine.  Above  it  arched  a  sky  of  robin-egg 
blue,  melting  into  opal  and  pale  gold  down  toward 
the  rim  of  the  world.  I  breathed  in  lungfuls  of 
dear,  dry,  ozonic  air,  and  I  really  believe  it  made 
me  a  little  light-headed,  it  was  so  exhilarating,  so 
champagnized  with  the  invisible  bubbles  of  life. 

I  needed  that  etheric  eye-opener,  Matilda  Anne, 
before  I  calmly  and  critically  looked  about  our 
25 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

shacE  Oh,  that  shack,  that  shack !  What  a  come- 
down it  was  for  your  heart-sore  Chaddie!  In  the 
first  place,  it  seemed  no  bigger  than  a  ship's  cabin, 
and  not  one-half  so  orderly.  It  is  made  of  lumber, 
and  not  of  logs,  and  is  about  twelve  feet  wide  and 
eighteen  feet  long.  It  has  three  windows,  on  hinges, 
and  only  one  door.  The  floor  is  rather  rough,  and 
has  a  trap  door  leading  into  a  small  cellar,  where 
vegetables  can  be  stored  for  winter  use.  The  end  of 
the  shack  is  shut  off  by  a  "tarp" — ^which  I  have 
just  found  out  is  short  for  tarpaulin.  In  other 
words,  the  privacy  of  my  bedroom  is  assured  by 
nothing  more  substantial  than  a  canvas  drop-cur- 
tain, shutting  off  my  boudoir,  where  I  could  never 
very  successfully  bonder,  from  the  larger  living- 
room. 

This  living-room  is  also  the  kitchen,  the  laundry, 
the  sewing-room,  the  reception-room  and  the  li- 
brary. It  has  a  good  big  cookstove,  which  burns 
either  wood  or  coal,  a  built-in  cupboard  with  an 
array  of  unspeakably  ugly  crockery  dishes,  a  row 

26 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

of  shelves  for  holding  canned  goods,  books  and 
magazines,  cooking  utensils,  gun-cartridges,  to- 
bacco-jars, carpenter's  tools  and  a  coal-oil  lamp. 
There  is  also  a  plain  pine  table,  a  few  chairs,  one 
rocking-chair  which  has  plainly  been  made  by  hand, 
and  a  flour-barrel.  Outside  the  door  is  a  wide  wooden 
bench  on  which  stands  a  big  tin  wash-basin  and  a 
cake  of  soap  in  a  sardine  can  that  has  been  punched 
full  of  holes  along  the  bottom.  Above  it  hung  a 
roller  towel  which  looked  a  little  the  worse  for  wear. 
And  that  was  to  be  my  home,  my  one  and  only 
habitation,  for  years  and  years  to  come !  That  lit- 
tle cat-eyed  cubby-hole  of  a  place! 

I  sat  down  on  an  over-turned  wash-tub  about 
twenty  paces  from  the  shack,  and  studied  it  with 
calm  and  thoughtful  eyes.  It  looked  infinitely 
worse  from  the  outside.  The  reason  for  this  was 
that  the  board  siding  had  first  been  covered  with 
tar-paper,  for  the  sake  of  warmth,  and  over  this 
had  been  nailed  pieces  of  tin,  tin  of  every  color  and 
size  and  description.  Some  of  it  was  flattened  out 
£7 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

stove-pipe,  and  some  was  obviously  the  sides  of 
tomato-cans.  Even  tin  tobacco-boxes  and  Dundee 
marmalade  holders  and  the  bottoms  of  old  bake- 
pans  and  the  sides  of  an  old  wash-boiler  had  been 
pieced  together  and  patiently  tacked  over  those 
shack-sides.  It  must  have  taken  weeks  and  weeks 
to  do.  And  it  suddenly  impressed  me  as  something 
poignant,  as  something  with  the  Vergilian  touch 
of  tears  in  it.  It  seemed  so  full  of  history,  so  vocal 
«f  the  tragic  expedients  to  which  men  on  the  prairie 
»ust  turn.  It  seemed  pathetic.  It  brought  a  lump 
kito  my  throat.  Yet  that  Joseph's  Coat  of  meta^ 
was  a  neatly  done  bit  of  work.  All  it  needed  was 
a  coat  of  paint  or  two,  and  it  would  look  less  like 
a  crazy-quilt  solidified  into  a  homestead.  And  I 
suddenly  remembered  Dinky-Dunk's  question  called 
out  to  Olie  from  the  car-end — and  I  knew  he'd  hur- 
ried off  a  message  to  have  that  telltale  tinning- job 
painted  over  before  I  happened  to  clap  eyes  on  it. 

As  Olie  had  disappeared  from  the  scene  and  waa 
nowhere  to  be  found,  I  went  in  and  got  my  own 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

breakfast.  It  was  supper  over  again,  only  I  scram- 
bled my  eggs  instead  of  frying  them.  And  all 
the  while  I  was  eating  that  meal  I  studied  those 
shack-walls  and  made  mental  note  of  what  should  be 
changed  and  what  should  be  done.  There  was  so 
much,  that  it  rather  overwhelmed  me.  I  sat  at 
the  table,  littered  with  its  dirty  dishes,  wondering 
where  to  begin.  And  then  the  endless  vista  of  it 
all  suddenly  opened  up  before  me.  I  became  nerv- 
ously conscious  of  the  unbroken  silence  about  me, 
and  I  realized  how  different  this  new  life  must  be 
from  the  old.  It  seemed  like  death  itself,  and  it 
got  a  strangle  hold  on  my  nerves,  and  I  knew  I 
was  going  to  make  a  fool  of  myself  the  very  first 
morning  in  my  new  home,  in  my  home  and  Dinky- 
Dunk's.  But  I  refused  to  give  in.  I  did  some- 
thing which  startled  me  a  little,  something  which  I 
had  not  done  for  years.  I  got  down  on  my  knees 
beside  that  plain  wooden  chair  and  prayed  to  God. 
I  asked  Him  to  give  me  strength  to  keep  me  from 
being  a  piker  and  make  me  a  wife  worthy  of  the 
29 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

man  who  loved  me,  and  lead  me  into  the  way  of 
bringing  happiness  to  the  home  that  was  to  be 
ours.  Then  I  rolled  up  my  sleeves,  tied  a  face 
towel  over  my  head  and  went  to  work. 

It  was  a  royal  cleaning-out,  I  can  tell  you.  In 
the  afternoon  I  had  Olie  down  on  all  fours  scrub- 
bing the  floor.  When  he  had  washed  the  windows 
I  had  him  get  a  garden  rake  and  clear  away  the 
rubbish  that  littered  the  dooryard.  I  draped  chintz 
curtains  over  the  windows,  and  had  Olie  nail  two 
shelves  in  a  packing-box  and  then  carry  it  into  my 
boudoir  behind  the  drop-curtain.  Over  this  box 
I  tacked  fresh  chintz  (for  the  shack  did  not  possess 
so  feminine  a  thing  as  a  dresser)  and  on  it  put  my 
folding-mirror  and  my  Tiffany  traveling-clock  and 
all  my  foolish  shimmery  silver  toilet  articles.  Then 
I  tacked  up  photographs  and  magazine-prints 
about  the  bare  wooden  walls — and  decided  that  be- 
fore the  winter  came  those  walls  would  be  painted 
and  papered,  or  I'd  know  the  reason  why.  Then  I 
aired  the  bedding  and  mattress,  and  unpacked  my^ 

30 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

brand-new  linen  sheets  and  the  ridiculous  hem- 
stitched  pillow-slips  that  I'd  scurried  so  frenziedlj 
about  the  city  to  get,  and  stowed  my  things  away 
on  the  box-shelves,  and  had  Olie  pound  the  life  out 
of  the  well-sunned  pillows,  and  carefully  remade  the 
bed. 

And  then  I  went  at  the  living-room.  And  it  wasP 
no  easy  task,  reorganizing  those  awful  shelves  and 
making  sure  I  wasn't  throwing  away  things  Dinky- 
Dunk  might  want  later  on.  But  the  carnage  was 
great,  and  all  afternoon  the  smoke  went  heaven- 
ward from  my  fires  of  destruction.  And  when  it 
was  over  I  told  Olie  to  go  out  for  a  good  long  walk, 
for  I  intended  to  take  a  bath.  Which  I  did  in  the 
wash-tub,  with  much  joy  and  my  last  cake  of  Rog- 
er-and-Gallet  soap.  And  I  had  to  shout  to  poor 
ambulating  Olie  for  half-an-hour  before  I  could 
persuade  him  to  come  in  to  supper.  And  even  then 
he  came  tardily,  with  countless  hesitations  and 
pauses,  as  though  a  lady  temerarious  enough  to 
take  a  scrub  were  for  all  time  taboo  to  the  race  of 
31 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

man.  And  when  he  finally  ventured  in  through  the 
door,  round-eyed  and  blushing  a  deep  russet,  he 
gaped  at  my  white  middy  and  my  little  white  apron 
with  that  silent  but  eloquent  admiration  which 
couldn't  fail  to  warm  the  cockles  of  the  most  un- 
impressionable housewife's  heart. 


Monday  the  Twenty-third 

My  Dinky-Dunk  is  back — and  oh,  the  differ- 
ence to  me!  I  kept  telling  myself  that  I  was 
too  busy  to  miss  him.  He  came  Saturday  night 
as  I  was  getting  ready  for  bed.  I'd  been  watch- 
ing the  trail  every  now  and  then,  all  day  long, 
and  by  nine  o'clock  had  given  him  up.  When  I 
heard  him  shouting  for  Olie,  I  made  a  rush  for 
him,  with  only  half  my  clothes  on,  and  nearly 
shocked  Olie  and  some  unknown  man,  who'd  driven 
Dinky-Dunk  home,  to  death.  How  I  hugged  my 
husband !  My  husband — ^I  love  to  write  that  word. 
And  when  I  got  him  inside  we  had  it  all  over  again. 
He  was  just  like  a  big  overgrown  boy.  And  he  put 
the  table  between  us,  so  he'd  have  a  chance  to  talk. 
But  even  that  didn't  work.  He  smothered  my 
laughing  in  kisses,  and  held  me  up  close  to  him  and 
said  I  was  wonderful.  Then  we'd  try  to  get  down 
to  earth  again,  and  talk  sensibly,  and  then  there'd 
S3 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

be  another  death-clinch.  Dinky-Dunk  says  I'm 
worse  than  he  is.  *'0f  course  it's  all  up  with  a 
man,"  he  confessed,  "when  he  sees  you  coming  for 
him  with  that  Australian  crawl-stroke  of  yours  l"^ 
For  which  I  did  my  best  to  break  in  his  floating 
ribs.  Heaven  only  knows  how  late  we  talked  that 
night.  And  Dinky-Dunk  had  a  bundle  of  sur^ 
prises  for  me.  The  first  was  a  bronze  reading* 
lamp.  The  second  was  a  soft  little  rug  for  the 
bedroom — only  an  Axminster,  but  very  acceptable* 
The  third  was  a  pair  of  Juliets,  lined  with  fur,  and 
oceans  too  big  for  me.  And  Dinky-Dunk  says  by 
Tuesday  we'll  have  two  milk-cows,  part-Jersey,  at 
the  ranch,  and  inside  of  a  week  a  crate  of  hens  will 
be  ours.  Thereupon  I  couldn't  help  leading  Dun- 
can to  the  inventory  I  had  made  of  what  we  had, 
and  the  list,  on  the  opposite  side,  of  what  we  had 
to  have.  The  second  thing  under  the  heading  of 
"Needs"  was  "lamp,"  the  fifth  was  "bedroom 
rug,"  the  thirteenth  was  "hens,"  and  the  next  was 
**cow."  I  think  he  was  rather  amazed  at  the  length 
of  that  list  of  "needs,"  but  he  says  I  shall  have 

34. 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

everything  in  reason.  And  when  he  kind  of  settled 
down,  and  noticed  the  changes  in  the  living-room 
and  then  went  in  and  inspected  the  bedroom  he  grew 
very  solemn,  of  a  sudden.    It  worried  me. 

"Lady  Bird,"  he  said,  taking  me  in  his  arms, 
**this  is  a  pretty  hard  life  I've  trapped  you  into.  It 
will  liave  to  be  hard  for  a  year  or  two,  but  we'll  win 
out,  in  the  end,  and  I  guess  it'll  be  worth  the  fight !" 

Dinky-Dunk  is  such  a  dear.  I  told  him  of  course 
we'd  win  out,  but  I  wouldn't  be  much  use  to  him  at 
iSrst.  I'd  have  to  get  broken  in  and  made  bridle- 
wise. 

"But,  oh,  Dinky-Dunk,  whatever  happens,  you 
must  always  love  me !" — and  I  imagine  I  swam  for 
him  with  my  Australian  crawl-stroke  again.  All  I 
remember  is  that  we  went  to  sleep  in  each  other's 
arms.  And  as  I  started  to  say  and  forgot  to  finish, 
I'd  been  missing  my  Dinky-Dunk  more  than  I 
imagined,  those  last  few  days.  After  that  night  it 
was  no  longer  just  a  shack.  It  was  "Home."  Home 
- — it's  such  a  beautiful  word!  It  must  mean  so 
much  to  every  woman.  And  I  fell  asleep  telling 
35 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

myself  it  was  the  loveliest  word  in  the  Englisli 
language. 

In  the  morning  I  slipped  out  of  bed  before 
Dinkj-Dunk  was  awake,  for  breakfast  was  to  be 
our  first  home  m«al,  and  I  wanted  it  to  be  a  re- 
spectable one.  Der  MeTuch  ist  was  er  isst — so  I 
must  feed  mj  lord  and  master  on  the  best  in  the 
land.  Accordingly  I  put  an  extra  tablespoonful 
of  cream  in  the  scrambled  eggs,  and  two  whole  eggs 
in  the  coffee,  to  make  dead  sure  it  was  crystal-clear. 
Then,  feeling  like  Van  Roon  when  Berlin  declared 
war  on  France,  I  rooted  out  Dinky-Dunk,  made  him 
wash,  and  sat  him  down  in  his  pajamas  and  his 
ragged  old  dressing-gown. 

"I  suppose,"  I  said  as  I  saw  his  eyes  wander 
nbout  the  table,  "that  you  feel  exactly  like  an 
oyster-man  who's  just  chipped  his  Blue-Point  and 
got  his  knife-edge  in  under  the  shell!  And  the 
next  wrench  is  going  to  tell  you  exactly  what  sort 
of  an  oyster  you've  got !" 

Dinky-Dunk  grinned  up  at  me  as  I  buttered  his 
toast,  piping  hot  from  the  range.  "Well,  Ladj 
36 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

Bird,  you're  not  the  kind  that'll  need  paprika,  any- 
way !"  he  announced  as  he  fell  to.  And  he  ate  like 
a  boa-constrictor  and  patted  his  pa  jama-front  and 
stentoriously  announced  that  he'd  picked  a  queen 
— only  he  pronounced  it  kaveen,  after  the  manner 
of  our  poor  old  Swedish  Olie ! 

As  that  was  Sunday  we  spent  the  morning  "pi- 
rooting"  about  the  place.  Dinky-Dunk  took  me  out 
and  showed  me  the  stables  and  the  hay-stacks  and 
the  granaries — which  he'd  just  waterproofed  so 
there'd  be  no  more  spoilt  grain  on  that  farm — an^ 
the  "cool-hole"  he  used  to  use  before  the  cellar  was 
built,  and  the  ruins  of  the  sod-hut  where  the  first 
homesteader  that  owned  that  land  had  lived.  Then 
he  showed  me  the  new  bunk-house  for  the  men, 
which  Olie  is  finishing  in  his  spare  time.  It  looks 
much  better  than  our  own  shack,  being  of  planed 
lumber.  But  Dinky-Dunk  is  loyal  to  the  shack, 
and  says  it's  really  better  built,  and  the  warmest 
shack  in  the  West — as  I'll  find  before  winter  is 
over. 

Then  we  stopped  at  the  pump,  and  Dinky-Dunk 
3T 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

made  a  confession.  When  he  first  bought  that 
ranch  there  was  no  water  at  the  shack,  except  what 
he  could  catch  from  the  roof.  Water  had  to  be 
hauled  for  miles,  and  it  was  muddy  and  salty,  at 
that.  They  used  to  call  it  "Gopher  soup."  This 
lack  of  water  always  worried  him,  he  said,  for 
women  always  want  water,  and  oodles  of  it.  It  was 
the  year  before,  after  he  had  left  me  at  Banff,  that 
he  was  determined  to  get  water.  It  was  hard  work, 
putting  down  that  well,  and  up  to  almost  the  last 
moment  it  promised  to  be  a  dry  hole.  But  when 
they  struck  that  water,  Dinky-Dunk  says,  he  de- 
cided in  his  soul  that  he  was  going  to  have  me,  if 
I  was  to  be  had.  It  was  water  fit  for  a  queen.  And 
he  wanted  his  queen.  But  of  course  even  queens 
have  to  be  well  laved  and  well  laundered.  He  said  he 
didn't  sleep  all  night,  after  they  found  the  water 
was  there.  He  was  too  happy ;  he  just  went  mean- 
dering about  the  prairie,  singing  to  himself. 

"So  you  were  pretty  sure  of  me,  Kitten-Cats, 
even  then  ?"  I  demanded. 

He  looked  at  me  with  his  solemn  Scotch-Canadian 
38 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

ejes.     **I'm  not  sure  of  you,  even  now,"  was  his 
answer.    But  I  made  him  take  it  back. 

It's  rather  odd  how  Dinky-Dunk  got  this  ranch, 
which  used  to  be  called  the  Cochrane  Ranch,  for 
even  behind  this  peaceful  little  home  of  ours  there 
is  a  touch  of  tragedy.  Hugh  Cochrane  was  one  of 
Dinky-Dunk's  surveyors  when  he  first  took  up  rail- 
road work  in  British  Columbia.  Hugh  had  a 
younger  brother  Andrew,  who  was  rather  wild  and 
had  been  brought  out  here  and  planted  on  the  prai- 
rie to  keep  him  out  of  mischief.  One  winter  night 
he  rode  nearly  thirty  miles  to  a  dance  (they  do  that 
apparently  out  here,  and  think  nothing  of  it)  and 
instead  of  riding  home  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, with  the  others,  he  visited  a  whisky-run< 
ner  who  was  operating  a  "blind  pig."  There  he 
acquired  much  more  whisky  than  was  good  for 
him  and  got  lost  on  the  trail.  That  meant  he  was 
badly  frozen  and  probably  out  of  his  mind  before 
he  got  back  to  the  shack.  He  wasn't  able  to  keep 
up  a  fire,  of  course,  or  do  anything  for  himself — 
and  I  suppose  the  poor  boy  simply  froze  to  deatlw 
S9 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

He  was  alone  there,  and  it  was  weeks  and  weeks  be- 
fore his  body  was  found.  But  the  most  gruesome 
part  of  it  all  is  that  his  horses  had  been  stabled, 
tied  up  in  their  stalls  without  feed.  They  were 
all  found  dead,  poor  brutes.  They'd  even  eaten 
the  wooden  boards  the  mangers  were  built  of.  Hugh 
Cochrane  couldn't  get  over  it,  and  was  going  to  seD 
the  ranch  for  fourteen  hundred  dollars  when  Dinky* 
Dunk  heard  of  it  and  stepped  in  and  bought  the 
whole  half-section.  Then  he  bought  the  McKinnon 
place,  a  half-section  to  the  north  of  this,  after  Mc- 
Kinnon had  lost  all  his  buildings  because  he  was  too 
shiftless  to  make  a  fire-guard.  And  when  the  rail- 
way work  was  finished  Dinky-Dunk  took  up  wheat- 
growing.  He  is  a  great  believer  in  wheat.  He 
says  wheat  spells  wealth,  in  this  country.  Some 
people  call  him  a  "land-miner,"  he  says,  but  when 
he's  given  the  chance  to  do  the  thing  as  he  wants 
to,  he'll  show  them  who's  right. 


40 


Wednesday  the  Twenty-fifth 

Dinky-Dunk  and  I  have  been  making  plans. 
He's  promised  to  build  an  annex  to  the  shack, 
a  wing  on  the  north  side,  so  I  can  have  a 
store-room  and  a  clothes-closet  at  one  end  and 
a  guest-chamber  at  the  other.  And  I'm  to  have 
a  sewing-machine  and  a  bread-mixer,  and  the 
smelly  steer-hide  divan  is  going  to  be  banished  to 
the  bunk-house.  And  Dinky-Dunk  says  I  must 
have  a  pinto,  a  riding-horse,  as  soon  as  he  can  lay 
hands  on  the  right  animal.  Later  on  he  says  I 
must  have  help,  but  out  here  in  the  West  women 
are  hard  to  get,  and  harder  to  keep.  They  are 
snatched  up  by  lonely  bachelors  like  Dinky-Dunk. 
They  can't  even  keep  the  school-teachers  (mostly 
girls  from  Ontario)  from  marrying  off.  But  I 
don't  want  a  woman  about,  not  for  a  few  months 
yet.  I  want  Dinky-Dunk  all  to  myself.  And  the 
freedom  of  isolation  like  this  is  such  a  luxury !  To 
be  just  one's  self,  in  civilization,  is  a  luxury,  is  the 
41 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

greatest  luxury  in  the  world, — and  alst»  the  most 
expensive,  I've  found  to  my  sorrow. 

Out  here,  there's  no  object  in  being  anything  but 
one's  self.  Life  is  so  simple  and  honest,  so  back  to 
first  principles !  There's  joy  in  the  thought  of  get* 
ting  rid  of  all  the  sublimated  junk  of  city  life. 
I'm  just  a  woman ;  and  Dinky-Dunk  is  just  a  man. 
We've  got  a  roof  and  a  bed  and  a  fire.  That's  all. 
And  what  is  there,  really,  after  that?  We  have 
to  eat,  of  course,  but  we  really  live  well.  There's 
all  the  game  we  want,  especially  wild  duck  and 
prairie  chicken,  to  say  nothing  of  jack-rabbit. 
Dinky-Dunk  sallies  out  and  pots  them  as  we  need 
them.  We  get  our  veal  and  beef  by  the  quarter,  but 
it  will  not  keep  well  until  the  weather  gets  cooler, 
so  I  put  what  we  don't  need  in  brine  and  use  it 
for  boiling-meat.  We  have  no  fresh  fruit,  but  even 
evaporated  peaches  can  be  stewed  so  that  they're 
appetizing.  And  as  I  had  the  good  sense  to  bring 
out  with  me  no  less  than  three  cook-books,  from 
Brentano's,  I  am  able  to  attempt  more  and  more 
llaborate  dishes. 

42 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

Olie  has  a  wire-fenced  square  where  he  grew  beets 
and  carrots  and  onions  and  turnips,  and  the  biggest 
potatoes  I  ever  saw.  These  will  be  pitted  before 
the  heavy  frosts  come.  We  get  our  butter  and  lard 
by  the  pail,  and  our  flour  by  the  sack,  but  getting 
things  in  quantities  sometimes  has  its  drawbacks. 
When  I  examined  the  oatmeal  box  I  found  it  had 
weavels  in  it,  and  promptly  threw  all  that  meal 
away.  Dinky-Dunk,  coming  in  from  the  corral, 
viewed  the  pile  with  round-eyed  amazement.  "It's 
got  worms  in  it !"  I  cried  out  to  him.  He  took  up 
a  handful  of  it,  and  stared  at  it  with  tragic  sor- 
row. "Why,  I  ate  weavels  all  last  winter,"  he  re- 
provingly remarked.  Dinky-Dunk,  with  his 
Scotch  strain,  loves  his  porridge.  So  we'll  have 
to  get  a  hundred-weight,  guaranteed  strictly  un- 
inhabited, when  we  team  into  Buckhorn. 

Men  are  funny!  A  woman  never  quite  knows 
a  man  until  she  has  lived  with  him  and  day  by  day 
unearthed  his  little  idiosyncrasies.  She  may  seem 
close  to  him,  in  those  earlier  days  of  romance,  but 
she  never  really  knows  him,  any  more  than  a  spar- 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

row  on  a  telegraph  wire  knows  the  Morse  Code 
thrilling  along  under  its  toes !  Men  have  so  many 
little  kinks  and  turns,  even  the  best  of  them.  I 
tacked  oil-cloth  on  a  shoe-box  and  draped  chintz 
around  it,  and  fixed  a  place  for  Dinky-Dunk  to 
Wash,  in  the  bedroom,  when  he  comes  in  at  noon. 
At  night  I  knew  it  would  be  impossible,  for  he's 
built  a  little  wash-house  with  old  binder-carrier  can- 
vas nailed  to  four  posts,  and  out  there  Olie  and  he 
strip  every  evening  and  splash  each  other  with 
horse-pails  full  of  well-water.  Dinky -Dunk  is  clean, 
whatever  he  may  be,  but  I  thought  it  would  look 
more  civilized  if  he'd  perform  his  limited  noon-day 
ablutions  in  the  bedroom.  He  did  it  for  one  day, 
in  pensive  silence,  and  then  sneaked  the  wash-things 
back  to  the  rickety  old  bench  outside  the  door.  He 
said  it  saved  time. 

Among  other  vital  things,  I've  found  that 
Dinky-Dunk  hates  burnt  toast.  Yesterday  morn- 
ing, Matilda  Anne,  I  got  thinking  about  Corfu  and 
Ragusa  and  you,  and  it  did  burn  a  little  around  the 
edges,  I  suppose.    So  I  kissed  his  ear  and  told  hint 

44 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

carbon  would  make  his  teeth  white.  But  he  got  up 
and  went  out  with  a  sort  of  "In-this-way-madness- 
lies"  expression,  and  I  felt  wretched  all  day.  So 
this  morning  I  was  more  careful.  I  did  that  toast 
just  to  a  turn.  "Feast,  O  Kaikobad,  on  the  blond- 
est of  toast !"  I  said  as  I  salaamed  and  handed  him 
the  plate.  He  wrinkled  up  his  forehead  a  little,  at 
the  sting  in  that  speech,  but  he  could  not  keep  f  roi| 
grinning.  Then,  too,  Dinky-Dunk  always  soaps 
the  back  of  his  hand,  to  wash  his  back,  and  reach 
high  up.  So  do  I.  And  on  cold  mornings  he  says 
"'One,  two,  three,  the  bumble  bee!"  before  he  hops 
out  of  bed — and  I  imagined  I  was  the  only  grown- 
up in  all  the  wide  world  who  still  made  use  of  that 
foolish  rhyme.  And  the  other  day  when  he  was  hot 
and  tired  I  found  him  drinking  a  dipper ful  of  cold 
water  fresh  from  the  well.     So  I  said : 

*'Many  a  man  has  gone  to  his  sarcophagus 

Thro'  pouring  cold  water  down  a  warm  esophagus !" 

When  I  recited  that  rhyme  to  him  he  swung  about 
as  though  he'd  been  shot.     "Where  did  you  ever 
45 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

hear  that?"  he  asked.  I  told  him  that  was  what 
Lady  Agatha  always  said  to  me  when  she  caught  me 
drinking  ice-water.  "I  thought  I  was  the  only  man 
in  the  world  who  knew  that  crazy  old  couplet,"  he 
confessed,  and  he  chased  me  around  the  shack  with 
the  rest  of  the  dipperf ul,  to  keep  from  chilling  his 
tummy,  he  explained.  Then  Dinky-Dunk  and  I 
both  like  to  give  pet-names  to  things.  He  calls 
me  "Lady  Bird"  and  "Gee-Gee"  and  sometimes 
*'Honey,"  and  sometimes  "Boca  Chica"  and  "Tab- 
by." And  I  call  him  Dinky-Dunk  and  The  Dour 
Maun,  and  Kitten-Cats,  though  for  some  reason  or 
other  he  hates  that  last  name.  I  think  he  feels  it's 
an  affront  to  his  dignity.  And  no  man  likes  a 
trace  of  mockery  in  a  woman.  But  Dinky-Dunk's 
names  are  born  of  affection,  and  I  love  him  for 
them. 

Even  the  ranch  horses  have  all  been  tagged  with 
names.  There's  "Slip-Along"  and  "Water  Light" 
and  "Bronk"  and  "Patsy  Crocker"  and  "Pick  and 
Shovel"  and  "Tumble  Weed,"  and  others  that  I 
can't  remember  at  the  moment.     And  I  find  I'm 

46 


THE    PRAIRIE   WIFE 

picking  up  certain  of  Dinky-Dunk's  little  habits, 
and  dropping  into  the  trick  of  looking  at  things 
from  his  standpoint.  I  wonder  if  husbands  and 
wives  really  do  get  to  be  alike?  There  are  times 
when  Dinky-Dunk  seems  to  know  just  what  I'm 
thinking,  for  when  he  speaks  he  says  exactly  the 
thing  I  was  going  to  ask  him.  And  he's  inexorable 
in  his  belief  that  one's  right  shoe  should  always 
be  put  on  first.    So  am  I ! 


« 


Thursday  the  Twenty-siooih 

Dinky-Dunk  is  rather  pinched  for  ready  money^ 
He  is  what  they  call  "land  poor"  out  here. 
He  has  big  plans,  but  not  much  cash.  So  we 
shall  have  to  be  frugal.  I  had  decided  on  vast 
and  sudden  changes  in  this  household,  but  I'll  have 
to  draw  in  my  horns  a  little.  Luckily  I  have 
nearly  two  hundred  dollars  of  my  own  money  left 
— and  have  never  mentioned  it  to  Dinky-Dunk.  So 
almost  every  night  I  study  the  magazine  adver- 
tisements, and  the  catalog  of  the  mail-order 
house  in  Winnipeg.  Each  night  I  add  to  my  list  of 
*'Needs,"  and  then  go  back  and  cross  out  some  of 
the  earlier  ones,  as  being  too  extravagant,  for  the 
length  of  my  list  almost  gives  me  heart-failure. 
And  as  I  sit  there  thinking  of  what  I  have  to  do 
without,  I  envy  the  women  I've  known  in  other 
days,  the  women  with  all  their  white  linen  and  their 
cut  glass  and  silverware  and  their  prayer-rugs  and 

48 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

period  rooms  and  their  white-tiled  baths  and  their 
machinery  for*  making  hf e  so  comfortable  and  so 
easy.  I  envy  them.  I  put  away  my  list,  and  go 
to  bed  envying  them.  But,  oh,  I  sleep  so  soundly, 
and  I  wake  up  so  buoyant  in  heart,  so  eager  to  get 
at  the  next  day's  work,  so  glad  to  see  I'm  slowly 
getting  things  more  ship-shape.  It  doesn't  leave 
room  for  regret.  And  there  is  always  the  future, 
the  happier  to-morrow  to  which  our  thoughts  go 
out.  I  get  to  thinking  of  the  city  again,  of  the 
hundreds  of  women  I  know  going  like  hundreds  of 
crazy  squirrels  on  their  crazy  treadmill  of  amuse- 
ments, and  of  the  thousands  and  thousands  of 
women  who  are  toiling  without  hope,  going  on  in  the 
same  old  rut  from  day  to  day,  cooped  up  in  little 
flats  and  back  rooms,  with  bad  air  and  bad  food 
and  bad  circulation,  while  I  have  all  God's  out- 
doors to  wander  about  in,  and  can  feel  the  singing 
rivers  of  health  in  my  veins.  And  here  I  side-step 
my  Song-of-Solomon  voluntary,  for  they  have  one 
thing  I  do  miss,  and  that  is  music.  I  wish  I  had 
a   cottage-piano   or   a  Baby   Grand   or  a   Welte 


THE   PRAIRIE   WIFE 

^Mignon!  I  wish  I  had  any  kind  of  an  old  piano! 
I  wish  I  had  an  accordion,  or  a  German  Sweet- 
Potato,  or  even  a  Jew's-Harp ! 

But  what's  the  use  of  wishing  for  luxuries,  wheni 
we  haven't  even  a  can-opener — ^Dinky-Dunk  says 
he's  used  a  hatchet  for  over  a  year !  And  our  only 
toaster  is  a  kitchen-fork  wired  to  the  end  of  a  lath. 
I  even  saw  Dinky-Dunk  spend  half  an  hour 
straightening  out  old  nails  taken  from  one  of  our 
shipping-boxes.  And  the  only  colander  we  have  was 
made  out  of  a  leaky  milk-pan  with  holes  punched 
in  its  bottom.  And  we  haven't  a  double-boiler  or  a 
mixing-bowl  or  a  doughnut-cutter.  When  I  told 
Dinky-Dunk  yesterday  that  we  were  running  out  of 
soap,  he  said  he'd  build  a  leach  of  wood-ashes  and 
get  beef -tallow  and  make  soft  soap.  I  asked  him 
how  long  he'd  want  to  kiss  a  downy  cheek  that  had 
been  washed  in  soft  soap.  He  said  he'd  keep  on 
kissing  me  if  I  was  a  mummy  pickled  in  bitumen. 
But  I  prefer  not  risking  too  much  of  the  pickhng 
process. 

Which  reminds  me  of  the  fact  that  I  find  my  hair 
60 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

a  terrible  nuisance,  with  no  Hortense  to  struggle 
with  it  every  morning.  As  you  know,  it's  as  thick 
as  a  rope  and  as  long  as  my  arm.  I  begrudge  the 
time  it  takes  to  look  after  it,  and  such  a  thing  as  a 
good  shampoo  is  an  event  to  be  approached  with 
trepidation  and  prepared  for  with  zeal.  "Coises 
on  me*  beauty !"  I  think  I'll  cut  that  wool  oif.  But 
on  each  occasion  when  I  have  my  mind  about  made 
up  I  experience  one  of  "Mr.  Polly's"  I'il  dog  mo- 
ments. The  thing  that  makes  me  hesitate  is  the 
thought  that  Dinky-Dunk  might  hate  me  for  the 
rest  of  his  days.  And  now  that  our  department- 
store  aristocracy  seems  to  have  a  corner  in  Counts 
and  I  seem  destined  to  worry  along  with  merely  an 
American  husband,  I  don't  intend  to  throw  away 
the  spoons  with  the  dish-water!  But  having  to 
fuss  so  with  that  hair  is  a  nuisance,  especially  at 
night,  when  I  am  so  tired  that  my  pillow  seems  to 
bark  like  a  dog  for  me  to  come  and  pat  it. 

And  speaking  of  that  reminds  me  that  I  have 
to  order  arch-supports  for  my  feet.    I'm  on  them 
so  much  that  by  bedtime  my  ankles  feel  like  a 
51 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

chocolat  mousse  that's  been  left  out  in  the  sun.  Yet 
this  isn't  a  whimper,  Matilda  Anne,  for  when  I  turn 
in  I  sleep  like  a  child.  No  more  counting  and  going 
to  the  medicine-chest  for  coal-tar  pills.  I  abjure 
them.  I,  who  used  to  have  so  many  tricks  to  bring 
the  starry-eyed  goddess  bending  over  my  pillow, 
hereby  announce  myself  as  the  noblest  sleeper 
north  of  the  Line!  I  no  longer  need  to  count  the 
sheep  as  they  come  over  the  wall,  or  patiently  try 
to  imagine  the  sound  of  surf-waves,  or  laboriously 
re-design  that  perennial  dinner-gown  which  I've 
kept  tucked  away  in  the  cedar-chest  of  the  imagina- 
tion as  long  as  I  can  remember,  elaborating  it  over 
and  over  again  down  to  the  minutest  details 
through  the  longest  hour  of  my  whitest  white  night 
until  it  began  to  merge  into  the  velvety  robes  of 
slumber  itself!  Nowadays  an  ogre  called  Ten- 
O'Clock  steals  up  behind  my  chair  with  a  club  in 
his  hand  and  stuns  me  into  insensibility.  Two  or 
three  times,  in  fact,  my  dear  old  clumsy-fingered 
Dinky-Dunk  has  helped  me  get  my  clothes  off. 
5« 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

But  he  says  that  the  nicest  sound  he  knows  is  to 
lie  in  bed  and  hear  the  tinkle  of  my  hair-pins  as 
I  toss  them  into  the  little  Coalport  pin-tray  on  my 
dresser — which  reminds  me  what  Chinkie  once  said 
about  his  idea  of  Heaven  being  eating  my  divinity- 
fudge  to  the  sound  of  trumpets ! 

I  brag  about  being  busy,  but  I'm  not  the  only 
busy  person  about  this  wickyup.  Olie  and  Dinky- 
Dunk  talk  about  summer-fallowing  and  double- 
discing  and  drag-harrowing  and  fire-guarding,  and 
I'm  beginning  to  understand  what  it  all  means. 
They  are  out  with  their  teams  all  day  long,  working 
like  Trojans.  We  have  mid-day  dinner,  which  Olie 
bolts  in  silence  and  with  the  rapidity  of  chain- 
lightning.  He  is  the  most  expert  of  sword-swallow- 
€rs,  with  a  table-knife,  and  Dinky-Dunk  says  it 
keeps  reminding  him  how  Burbank  could  make  a 
fortune  inventing  a  square  pea  that  would  stay  on 
A  knife-blade.  But  Dinky-Dunk  stopped  me  call- 
ing him  "The  Sword  Swallower"  and  has  privately 
tipped  Olie  off  as  to  the  functions  of  the  table  fork. 
53 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

How  the  males  of  this  old  earth  stick  together! 
The  world  of  men  is  a  secret  order,  and  every  man 
is  a  member ! 

Having  bolted  his  dinner  Olie  always  makes  for 
outdoors.  Then  Dinky-Dunk  comes  to  my  side  of 
the  table.  We  sit  side  by  side,  with  our  arms 
around  each  other.  Sometimes  I  fill  his  pipe  for 
him  and  light  it.  Then  we  talk  lazily,  happily, 
contentedly  and  sometimes  shockingly.  Then  he 
looks  at  our  nickel-alarm  clock,  up  on  the  book 
shelves  which  I  made  out  of  old  biscuit-boxes,  and 
invariably  says:  "This  isn't  the  spirit  that  built 
Rome,"  and  kisses  me  three  times,  once  on  each  eye- 
lid, tight,  and  once  on  the  mouth.  I  don't  even 
mind  the  taste  of  the  pipe.  Then  he's  off,  and  I'm 
alone  for  the  afternoon. 

But  I'm  getting  things  organized  now  so  that  I 
have  a  little  spare  time.  And  with  time  on  my 
hands  I  find  myself  turning  very  restless.  Yes- 
terday I  wandered  off  on  the  prairie  and  nearly  got 
lost.     Dinky-Dunk  says  I  must  be  more  careful, 

54 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

tintil  I  get  to  know  the  country  better.  He  put  me 
up  on  his  shoulder  and  made  me  promise.  Then  he 
let  me  down.  It  made  me  wonder  if  I  hadn't  married 
a  masterful  man.  Above  all  things  I've  always 
wanted  freedom. 

*'I'm  a  wild  woman,  Duncan.  You'll  never  tame 
me,"  I  confessed  to  him. 

He  laughed  a  little. 

**So  you  think  you  will?"  I  demanded. 

**No,  I  won't,  Gee-Gee,  but  life  will !" 

And  again  I  felt  some  ghostly  spirit  of  revolt 
stirring  in  me,  away  down  deep.  I  think  he  saw 
some  shadow  of  it,  caught  some  echo  of  it,  for  his 
manner  changed  and  he  pushed  back  the  hair  from 
my  forehead  and  kissed  me,  almost  pityingly. 

"There's  one  thing  must  not  happen!"  I  told 
him  as  he  held  me  in  his  arms. 

He  did  not  let  his  eyes  meet  mine. 

"Why?"  he  asked. 

*Tm  afraid — out  here !"  I  confessed  as  I  clung  tt 
iiim  and  felt  the  need  of  having  him  close  to  me.  He 

5lK 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

was  very  quiet  and  thoughtful  all  evening.  Before 
I  fell  asleep  he  told  me  that  on  Monday  the  two  of 
us  would  team  In  to  Buckhorn  and  get  a  wagons 
load  of  supplies. 


if 


'Saturday  the  Twenty-eighth 

I  HAVE  got  my  cayuse.  Dinky-Dunk  meant  Kid® 
for  a  surprise,  but  the  shyest  and  reddest^ 
headed  cowboy  that  ever  sat  in  a  saddle  came 
cantering  along  the  trail,  and  I  saw  him  first.  He 
was  leading  the  shaggiest,  piebaldest,  pottest-tum- 
mied,  craziest-looking  little  cayuse  that  ever  wore 
a  bridle.  I  gave  one  look  at  his  tawny-colored 
forelock,  which  stood  pompadour-style  about  his 
ears,  and  shouted  out  "Paderewski !"  Dinky-Dunk 
came  and  stood  beside  me  and  laughed.  He  said' 
that  cayuse  did  look  like  Paderewski,  but  the  youth 
of  the  fiery  locks  blushingly  explained  that  his  pres- 
ent name  was  "Jail-Bird,"  which  some  fool  Scandi- 
navian had  used  instead  of  "Grey-Bird,"  his  au- 
thentic and  original  appellative.  But  I  stuck  to  my 
name,  though  we  have  shortened  it  into  "Paddy.'* 
And  Paddy  must  indeed  have  been  a  jail-bird,  or 
deserved  to  be  one,  for  he  is  marked  and  scarred. 
57 


THE   PRAIRIE   WIFE 

from  end  to  end.  But  he  is  good-tempered,  tougli 
as  hickory  and  obligingly  omnivorous.  Every  one 
iathe  West,  men  and  women  alike,  rides  astride,  and 
I  have  been  practising  on  Paddy.  It  seems  a  very 
comfortable  and  sensible  way  to  ride,  but  I  shall 
liave  to  toughen  up  a  bit  before  I  hit  the  trail  for 
any  length  of  time. 

I've  been  wondering,  Matilda  Anne,  if  this  all 
sounds  pagan  and  foolish  to  you,  uncultured,  as 
Theobald  Gustav  would  put  it?  I've  also  been  won- 
dering, since  I  wrote  that  last  sentence,  if  people 
really  need  culture,  or  what  we  used  to  call  cul- 
ture, and  if  it  means  as  much  to  life  as  so  many 
imagine.  Here  we  are  out  here  without  any  of  thi' 
refinements  of  civilization,  and  we're  as  much  |ii 
peace  with  our  own  souls  as  are  the  birds  of  the 
air — ^when  there  are  birds  in  the  air,  which  isn't 
in  our  country !  Culture,  it  seems  to  me  as  I  look 
back  on  things,  tends  to  make  people  more  and 
more  mere  spectators  of  life,  detaching  them  frofll 
it  and  lifting  them  above  it.  Or  can  it  be  that  the 
mere  spectators  demand  culture,  to  take  the  place  of 

58 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

what  they  miss  by  not  being  actual  builders  and 
workers  ? 

We  are  farmers,  just  rubes  and  hicks,  as  they  say 
in  my  country.  But  we're  tilling  the  soil  and  grow- 
ing wheat.  We're  making  a  great  new  country  out 
of  what  was  once  a  wilderness.  To  me,  that  seems 
almost  enough.  We're  laboring  to  feed  the  world, 
since  the  world  must  have  bread,  and  there's  some- 
thing satisfying  and  uplifting  in  the  mere  thought 
that  we  can  answer  to  God,  in  the  end,  for  our 
lives,  no  matter  how  raw  and  rude  they  may  have 
been.  And  there  are  mornings  when  I  am  Brown- 
ing's *'Saul"  in  the  flesh.  The  great  wash  of  air 
from  sky-hne  to  sky-line  puts  something  into  mj 
blood  or  brain  that  leaves  me  almost  dizzy.  I 
sizzle!  It  makes  me  pulse  and  tingle  and  cry  out 
that  life  is  good — good!  I  suppose  it  is  nothing 
more  than  altitude  and  ozone.  But  in  the  matter 
of  intoxicants  it  stands  on  a  par  with  anything  that 
was  ever  poured  out  of  bottles  at  Martin's  or  Bus- 
tanoby's.  And  at  sunrise,  when  the  prairie  is  thinly 
silvered  with  dew,  when  the  tiny  hammocks  of  the 
59 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

spider-webs  swing  a  million  sparkling  webs  strung 
with  diamonds,  when  every  blade  of  grass  is  a  sing- 
ing string  of  pearls,  hymning  to  God  on  High  for 
the  birth  of  a  gdlden  day,  I  can  feel  my  heart  swell, 
and  I'm  so  abundantly,  so  inexpressibly  alive,  alive 
to  every  finger-tip!  Such  space,  such  light,  such 
distances !  And  being  Saul  is  so  much  better  than 
reading  about  him ! 


Wednesday  the  First 

I  WAS  too  tired  to  write  any  last  night,  though 
there  seemed  so  much  to  talk  about.  We  teamed 
into  Buckhom  for  our  supplies,  two  leisurely, 
lovely,  lazy  days  on  the  trail,  which  we  turned  into 
a  sort  of  gipsy-holiday.  We  took  blankets  and  grub 
and  feed  for  the  horses  and  a  frying-pan,  and 
camped  out  on  the  prairie.  The  night  was  pretty 
cool,  but  we  made  a  good  fire,  and  had  hot  coffee. 
Dinky-Dunk  smoked  and  I  sang.  Then  we  rolled 
up  in  our  blankets  and  as  I  lay  there  watching  the 
stars  I  got  thinking  of  the  lights  of  the  Great 
White  Way.  Then  I  nudged  my  husband  and  asked 
him  if  he  knew  what  my  greatest  ambition  in  life 
used  to  be.  And  of  course  he  didn't.  "Well, 
Dinky-Dunk,"  I  told  him,  "it  was  to  be  the  boy 
who  opens  the  door  at  Malliard's!  For  two  whole 
years  I  ate  my  heart  out  with  envy  of  that  boy,  who 
always  lived  in  the  odor  of  such  heavenly  hot  choco- 
61 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

kite  and  wore  two  rows  of  shining  buttons  down  his 
braided  coat  and  was  never  without  white  gloves  and 
morning,  noon  and  night  paraded  about  in  the 
duckiest  little  skull-cap  cocked  very  much  to  one 
side  like  a  Grenadier's  1"  And  Dinky-Dunk  told 
Hie  to  go  to  sleep  or  he'd  smother  me  with  a  horse- 
blanket.  So  I  squirmed  back  into  my  blanket  and 
got  "nested"  and  watched  the  fire  die  away  while 
far,  far  off  somewhere  a  coyote  howled.  That  made 
^e  lonesome,  so  I  got  Dinky-Dunk's  hand,  and  fell 
asleep  holding  it  in  mine. 

I  woke  up  early.  Dinky-Dunk  had  forgotten 
about  my  hand,  and  it  was  cold.  In  the  East  there 
was  a  low  bar  of  ethereally  pale  silver,  which  turned 
to  amber,  and  then  to  ashes  of  roses,  and  then  to 
gold.  I  saw  one  sublime  white  star  go  out,  in  the 
West,  and  then  behind  the  bars  of  gold  the  sky 
grew  rosy  with  morning  until  it  was  one  Burgun- 
dian  riot  of  bewildering  color.  I  sat  up  and  watched 
it.  Then  I  reached  over  and  shook  Dinky-DunL 
It  was  too  glorious  a  daybreak  to  miss.  He  looked 
at  me  with  one  eye  open,  like  a  sleepy  hound. 

62 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

**You  must  see  it,  Dinky-Dunk !  It's  so  resplend- 
ent it's  positively  vulgar !" 

He  sat  up,  stared  at  the  pageantry  of  color  for 
one  moment,  and  then  wriggled  down  into  his 
blanket  again.  I  tickled  his  nose  with  a  blade  of 
sweet-grass.  Then  I  washed  my  face  in  the  dew^ 
the  same  as  we  did  in  Christ-Church  Meadow  that 
glorious  May-Day  in  Oxford.  By  the  time  Dinky-' 
Dunk  woke  up  I  had  the  coffee  boiling  and  the 
bacon  sizzling  in  the  pan.  It  was  the  most  celestial 
smell  that  ever  assailed  human  nostrils,  and  I  blush 
with  shame  at  the  thought  of  how  much  I  ate  at 
that  breakfast,  sitting  flat  on  an  empty  oat-sack 
and  leaning  against  a  wagon-wheel.  By  eight 
o'clock  we  were  in  the  metropolis  of  Buckhom  and 
busy  gathering  up  our  things  there.  And  they  made 
a  very  respectable  wagon-loadi 


TOhursday  the  Second 

1  HAVE  been  practising  like  mad  learning  to 
"play  the  mouth-organ.  I  bought  it  in  Buck- 
liorn,  without  letting  Dinky-Dunk  know,  and  all 
•day  long,  when  I  knew  it  was  safe,  I've  been  at  it. 
So  to-night,  when  I  had  my  supper-table  all  ready, 
I  got  the  ladder  that  leaned  against  one  of  the  gran- 
aries and  mounted  the  nearest  hay-stack.  There, 
quite  out  of  sight,  I  waited  until  Dinky-Dunk  came 
in  with  his  team.  I  saw  him  go  into  the  shack  and 
then  step  outside  again,  staring  about  in  a  brown 
study.    Then  I  struck  up  TraumereL 

You  should  have  seen  that  boy's  face !  He  looked 
up  at  the  sky,  as  though  my  poor  little  harmonica 
were  the  aerial  outpourings  of  archangels.  He 
stood  stock-still,  drinking  it  in.  Then  he  bolted 
for  the  stables,  thinking  it  came  from  there.  It 
took  him  some  time  to  corner  me  up  on  my  stack- 
top.     Then  I  slid  down  into  his  arms.     And  I  be- 

64 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

lieve  he  loves  that  mouth-organ  music.  After  sup- 
per he  made  me  go  out  and  sit  on  the  oat-box  and 
play  my  repertory.  He  says  it's  wonderful,  from 
a  distance.  But  that  mouth-organ's  rather  brassy, 
and  it  makes  my  lips  sore.  Then,  too,  my  mouth 
isn't  big  enough  for  me  to  "tongue"  it  properly. 
When  I  told  Dinky-Dunk  this  he  said : 

"Of  course  it  isn't!  What  d'you  suppose  I've 
been  calling  you  Boca  Chica  for?" 

And  I've  just  discovered  "Boca  Chica"  is  Span- 
ish for  "Little  Mouth" — and  me  with  a  trap,  Ma- 
tilda Anneal  that  you  used  to  call  the  Cave  of  the 
Winds!  Now  Dinky-Dunk  vows  he'll  have  a  Vic- 
trola  before  the  winter  is  over !  Ye  gods  and  little 
fishes,  what  a  luxury!  There  was  a  time,  not  so 
long  ago,  when  I  was  rather  inclined  to  sniff  at  the 
Westbury's  electric  player-piano  and  its  cabinet  of 
neatly  canned  classics !  How  life  humbles  us !  And 
how  blind  all  women  are  in  their  ideals  and  their 
search  for  happiness !  The  sea-stones  that  lie  so 
bright  on  the  shores  of  youth  can  dry  so  dull  in 
the  hand  of  experience !  And  yet,  as  Birdalone's 
66 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

Nannie  once  announced,  "If  you  thuck  'em  they 
Ihay  boo-ful!"  And  I  guess  it  must  be  a  good 
deal  the  same  with  marriage.  You  can't  even  af- 
ford to  laj  down  on  your  job  of  loving.  The  more 
we  ask,  the  more  we  must  give.  I've  just  been 
thinking  of  those  days  of  my  fiercely  careless  child- 
hood when  my  soul  used  to  float  out  to  placid  hap- 
piness on  one  piece  of  plum-cake — only  even  then, 
alas,  it  floated  out  like  a  polar  bear  on  its  iceberg, 
for  as  that  plum-cake  vanished  my  peace  of  mind 
went  with  it,  madly  as  I  clung  to  the  last  crumb. 
But  now  that  I'm  an  old  married  woman  I  don't 
intend  to  be  a  Hamlet  in  petticoats.  A  good  man 
loves  me,  and  I  love  him  back.  And  I  intend  to 
keep  that  love  alive. 


m 


Friday  the  Third 

I  HAVE  just  issued  an  ultimatum  as  to  pigs. 
There  shall  be  no  more  loose  porkers  wander- 
ing about  my  dooryard.  It's  an  advertisement  of 
bad  management.  And  what's  more,  when  I  was 
hanging  out  my  washing  this  morning  a  shote 
rooted  through  my  basket  of  white  clothes  with  his 
dirty  nose,  and  while  I  made  after  him  his  big 
brother  actually  tried  to  eat  one  of  my  wet  table- 
napkins.  And  that  meant  another  hour's  hard  work 
before  the  damage  was  repaired. 


67 


Saturday  the  Fourth 

OuE  is  painting  the  shack,  inside  and  out,  and 
now  you'd  never  know  our  poor  little  Joseph- 
coat  home.  I  told  Dinky-Dunk  if  we'd  ever 
put  a  chameleon  on  that  shack-wall  he'd  have  died 
of  brain-fag  trying  to  make  good  on  the  color- 
schemes.  So  Dinky-Dunk  made  Olie  take  a  day  off 
and  ply  the  brush.  But  the  smell  of  paint  made 
me  think  of  Channel  passages,  so  off  I  went  with 
Dinky-Dunk,  a  la  team  and  buckboard,  to  the  Dixon 
Ranch  to  see  about  some  horses,  nearly  seventy 
miles  there  and  back.  It  was  a  glorious  autumn 
day,  and  a  glorious  ride,  with  "Bronk"  and  "Tum- 
ble-Weed" loping  along  the  double-trail  and  the  air 
like  crystal. 

Dinky-Dunk  and  I  sang  most  of  the  way.    The 

gophers  must  have  thought  we  were  mad.     My 

lord  and  master  is  incontinently  proud  of  his  voice, 

especially  the  chest-tones,  but  he  rather  tails  be* 

68 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

hind  me  on  the  tune,  plainly  not  always  being  sure 
of  himself.  We  had  dinner  with  the  Dixons,  and 
about  three  million  flies.  They  gave  me  the  blues, 
,  that  family,  and  especially  Mrs.  Dixon.  She  seemed 
to  make  prairie-life  so  ugly  and  empty  and  hard- 
ening. Poor,  dried-up,  sad-eyed  soul,  she  looked 
like  a  woman  of  sixty,  and  yet  her  husband  said 
she  was  just  thirty-seven.  Their  water  is  strong 
with  alkali,  and  this  and  the  prairie  wind  (combined 
with  a  something  deep  down  in  her  own  make-up) 
have  made  her  like  a  vulture,  lean  and  scrawny  and 
dry.  I  stared  at  that  hard  line  of  jaw  and  cheek- 
bone and  wondered  how  long  ago  the  soft  curves 
were  there,  and  if  those  overworked  hands  had 
ever  been  pretty,  and  if  that  flat  back  had  ever 
been  rounded  and  dimpled.  Her  hair  was  untidy. 
Her  apron  was  unspeakably  dirty,  and  she  used 
it  as  both  a  handkerchief  and  a  hand-towel.  Her 
voice  was  as  hard  as  nails,  and  her  cooking  was 
wretched.  Not  a  door  or  window  was  screened,  and, 
as  I  said  before,  we  were  nearly  smothered  with 
flies. 

69 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

Dinky-Dunk  did  not  dare  to  look  at  me,  all  dinner 
time.  And  on  the  way  home  Mrs.  Dixon's  eyes  kept 
haunting  me,  they  seemed  so  tired  and  vacant  and 
accusing,  as  though  they  were  secretly  holding  God 
Himself  to  account  for  cheating  her  out  of  her 
woman's  heritage  of  joy.  I  asked  Dinky-Dunk  if 
we'd  ever  get  like  that.  He  said,  "Not  on  your 
life !"  and  quoted  the  Latin  phrase  about  mind  con- 
trolling matter.  The  Dixons,  he  went  on  to  ex- 
plain, were  of  the  "slum"  type,  only  they  didn't 
happen  to  live  in  a  city.  But  tired  and  sleepy  as 
I  was  that  night,  I  got  up  to  cold-cream  my  face 
and  arms.  And  I'm  going  to  write  for  almond- 
meal  and  glycerin  from  the  mail-order  house  to- 
morrow. And  a  brassiere — for  I  saw  what  looked 
like  the  suspicion  of  a  smile  on  Dinky-Dunk's  un^ 
shaven  lips  as  he  watched  me  struggling  into  my 
corsets  this  morning.  It  took  some  writhing,  and 
even  then  I  could  hardly  make  it.  I  threw  my  wet 
sponge  after  him  when  he  turned  back  in  the  door- 
way with  the  mildly  impersonal  question:  "Who's 
your  fat  friend.?"  Then  he  scooted  for  the  corral, 
70 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

and  I  went  back  and  studied  my  chin  in  the  dresser« 
mirror,  to  make  sure  it  wasn't  getting  terraced  into 
a  dew-lap  like  Uncle  Carlton's. 

But  I  can't  help  thinking  of  the  Dixons,  and  feel- 
ing foolishly  and  helplessly  sorry  for  them.  It 
was  dusk  when  we  got  back  from  that  long  drive 
to  their  ranch,  and  the  stars  were  coming  out.  I 
•could  see  our  shack  from  miles  off,  a  little  lonely 
dot  of  black  against  the  sky-line.  I  made  Dinky- 
Dunk  stop  the  team,  and  we  sat  and  looked  at  it. 
It  seemed  so  tiny  there,  so  lonely,  so  strange,  ii& 
the  middle  of  such  miles  and  miles  of  emptiness, 
with  a  little  rift  of  smoke  going  up  from  its  deso* 
late  little  pipe-end.  Then  I  said,  out  loud,  **Homel 
m  My  home !"  And  out  of  a  clear  sky,  for  no  earthly 
reason,  I  began  to  cry  like  a  baby.  Women  are 
such  fools,  sometimes !  I  told  Dinky-Dunk  we  must 
get  books,  good  books,  and  spend  the  long  winter 
evenings  reading  together,  to  keep  from  going  to 
seed. 

He  said,  "All  right,  Gee-Gee,"  and  patted  mjr^ 
knee.     Then  we  loped  on  along  the  trail  towa^p 
71 


THE    PRAIRIE   WIFE 

the  lonely  little  black  dot  ahead  of  us.  But  I  hung 
on  to  Dinky-Dunk's  arm,  all  the  rest  of  the  way, 
until  we  pulled  up  beside  the  shack,  and  poor  old 
Olie,  with  a  frying-pan  in  his  hand,  stood  silhou- 
etted against  the  light  of  the  open  door. 


f» 


Monday  the  Sixth 

The  last  few  days  I've  been  nothing  but  a  two- 
footed  retriever,  scurrying  off  and  carrying  things 
back  home  with  me.  There  have  been  rains,  but 
the  weather  is  still  glorious.  And  I've  discovered 
such  heaps  and  heaps  of  mushrooms  over  at  the  old 
Titchborne  Ranch.  They're  thick  all  around  the 
corral  and  in  the  pasture  there.  I  am  now  what 
your  English  lord  and  master  would  call  "a  per- 
fect seat"  on  Paddy,  and  every  morning  I  ride 
over  after  my  basketful  of  Agaricus  Campestris 
— ^that  ought  to  be  in  the  plural,  but  I've  forgotten 
how!  We  have  them  creamed  on  toast;  we  have 
them  fried  in  butter;  and  we  have  them  in  soup — 
and  such  beauties !  I'm  going  to  try  and  can  some 
for  winter  and  spring  use.  But  the  finest  part 
of  the  mushroom  is  the  finding  it.  To  ride  into 
a  little  white  city  that  has  come  up  overnight  and 
looks  like  an  encampment  of  fairy  soldiers,  to  see 
7S 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

the  milky  white  domes  against  the  vivid  green  oC 
the  prairie-grass,  to  catch  sight  of  another  clump 
of  them,  suddenly,  like  stars  against  an  emerald 
sky,  a  hundred  yards  away,  to  inhale  the  clean 
morning  air,  and  feel  your  blood  tingle,  and  hear 
the  prairie-chickens  whir  and  the  wild-duck  scold- 
ing along  the  coulee-edges — ^I  tell  you,  Matilda 
Anne,  it's  worth  losing  a  little  of  your  beauty  sleep 
to  go  through  it!  I'm  awake  even  before  Dinky- 
Dunk,  and  I  brought  him  out  of  his  dreams  this 
morning  by  poking  his  teeth  with  my  little  finger 

and  saying: 

"Twelve  white  horses 
On  a  red  hill—" 

and  I  asked  him  if  he  knew  what  it  was,  and  he 
gave  the  right  answer,  and  said  he  hadn't  heard 
that  conundrum  since  he  was  a  boy. 

All  afternoon  I've  been  helping  Dinky-Dunk  put 
up  a  barb-wire  fence.  Barb-wire  is  nearly  as  hard 
as  a  woman  to  handle.  Dinky-Dunk  is  fencing  in 
some  of  the  range,  for  a  sort  of  cattle-run  for  our 
two  milk-cows.  He  says  it's  only  a  small  field. 
74 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

but  there  seemed  to  be  miles  and  miles  of  that  fenc- 
ing. We  had  no  stretcher,  so  Dinky-Dunk  made 
shift  with  me  and  a  claw-hammer.  He'd  catch  the 
wire,  lever  his  hammer  about  a  post,  and  I'd  drive 
in  the  staple,  with  a  hammer  of  my  own.  I  got 
so  I  could  hit  the  staple  almost  every  whack,  though 
one  staple  went  off  like  shrapnel  and  hit  Diddum's 
ear.  So  I'm  some  use,  you  see,  even  if  I  am  a 
chekako!  But  a  wire  slipped,  and  tore  through 
my  skirt  and  stocking,  scratched  my  leg  and  made 
the  blood  run.  It  was  only  the  tiniest  cut,  really, 
but  I  made  the  most  of  it,  Dinky-Dunk  was  so 
adorably  nice  about  doctoring  me  up.  We  came 
home  tired  and  happy,  singing  together,  and  Olie, 
as  usual,  must  have  thought  we'd  both  gone  mad. 
This  husband  of  mine  is  so  elementary.  He 
secretly  imagines  that  he's  one  of  the  most  complex 
of  men.  But  in  a  good  many  things  he's  as  simple 
as  a  child.  And  I  love  him  for  it,  although  I  be- 
lieve I  do  like  to  bedevil  him  a  little.  He  is  dig- 
nified, and  hates  flippancy.  So  when  I  greet  him 
with  "Morning,  old  boy !"  I  can  see  that  nameless 
75 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

little  shadow  sweep  over  his  face.  Then  I  say, 
•^'Oh,  I  beg  its  little  pardon !"  He  generally  grins, 
in  the  end,  and  I  think  I'm  slowly  shaking  that 
monitorial  air  out  of  him,  though  once  or  twice 
I've  had  to  remind  him  about  La  Rochefoucauld 
saying  gravity  was  a  stratagem  invented  to  conceal 
the  poverty  of  the  mind!  But  Dinky-Dunk  still 
objects  to  me  putting  my  finger  on  his  Adam's 
apple  when  he's  talking.  He  wears  a  flannel  shirt, 
when  working  outside,  and  his  neck  is  bare.  Yes- 
terday I  buried  my  face  down  in  the  corner  next 
to  his  shoulder-blade  and  made  him  wriggle.  As 
he  shaves  only  on  Sunday  mornings  now,  that  Is 
about  the  only  soft  spot,  for  his  face  is  prickly,, 
and  makes  my  chin  sore,  the  bearded  brute !  Then 
I  bit  him;  not  hard — ^but  Satan  said  bite,  and  I 
just  had  to  do  it.  He  turned  quite  pale,  swung 
me  round  so  that  I  lay  limp  in  his  arms,  and  closed 
his  mouth  over  mine.  I  got  away,  and  he  chased 
me.  We  upset  things.  Then  I  got  outside  the 
shack,  ran  around  the  horse-corral,  and  then  around 
the  hay-stacks,  with  Dinky-Dunk  right  after  mej» 

76 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

giving  me  goose-flesh  at  every  turn.  I  felt  like  a 
cave-woman.  He  grabbed  me  like  a  stone-age  man 
and  caught  me  up  and  carried  me  over  his  shoulder 
to  a  pile  of  prairie  sweet-grass  that  had  been  lefti 
there  for  Olie's  mattress.  My  hair  was  down.  I 
was  screaming,  half  sobbing  and  half  laughing. 
He  dropped  me  in  the  hay,  like  a  bag  of  wheat.  I 
started  to  fight  him  again.  But  I  couldn't  beat  him 
off.  Then  all  my  strength  seemed  to  go.  He  was 
laughing  himself,  but  it  frightened  me  a  little  to 
see  his  pupils  so  big  that  his  eyes  looked  black.  I 
felt  like  a  lamb  in  a  lion's  jaw,  Dinky-Dunk  is 
so  much  stronger  than  I  am.  I  lay  there  quite 
still,  with  my  eyes  closed.  I  went  flop.  I  knew  I 
was  conquered. 

Then  I  came  back  to  life.  I  suddenly  realized 
that  it  was  mid-day,  in  the  open  air  between  the 
bald  prairie-floor  and  God's  own  blue  sky,  where 
Olie  could  stumble  on  us  at  any  moment — and  pos- 
sibly die  with  his  boots  on !  Dinky-Dunk  was  kiss- 
ing my  left  eyelid.  It  was  a  cup  his  lips  just 
seemed  to  fit  into.  I  tried  to  move.  But  he  held 
77 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

me  there.  He  held  me  so  firmly  that  it  hurt.  Yet 
I  conldn't  help  hugging  him.  Poor,  big,  foolish, 
babv-hearted  Dinky-Dunk !  And  poor,  weak,  crazy, 
storm-tossed  me!  But,  oh,  God,  it's  glorious,  in 
some  mysterious  way,  to  stir  the  blood  of  a  strong 
big  man !  It's  heaven — and  I  don't  quite  know  why. 
But  I  love  to  see  Dinky-Dunk's  eyes  grow  black. 
Yet  it  makes  me  a  little  afraid  of  him.  I  can  hear 
his  heart  pound,  sometimes,  quite  distinctly.  And 
sometimes  there  seems  something  so  pathetic  about 
it  all — we  are  such  puny  little  mites  of  emotion 
played  on  by  nature  for  her  own  immitigable  ends ! 
But  every  woman  wants  to  be  loved.  Dinky-Dunk 
asked  me  why  I  shut  my  eyes  when  he  kisses  me. 
I  wonder  why.''  Sometimes,  too,  he  says  my  kisses 
are  wicked,  and  that  he  likes  'em  wicked.  He's 
a  funny  mixture.  He's  got  the  soul  of  a  Scotch 
Calvinist  tangled  up  in  him  somewhere,  and  after 
the  storm  he's  very  apt  to  grow  pious  and  a  bit 
preachy.  But  he  has  feelings,  only  he's  ashamed 
of  them.  I  think  I'm  taking  a  little  of  the  ice- 
crust  ofP  his  emotions.    He's  a  stiff  clay  that  needs 

78 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

to  be  well  stirred  up  and  turned  over  before  it  can 
mellow.  And  I  must  be  a  sandy  loam  that  wastes 
all  its  strength  in  one  short  harvest.  That  sounds 
as  though  I  were  getting  to  be  a  real  farmer's  wife 
with  a  vast  knowledge  of  soils,  doesn't  it?  At 
any  rate  my  husband,  out  of  his  vast  knowledge 
of  me,  says  I  have  the  swamp-cedar  trick  of  flar- 
ing up  into  sudden  and  explosive  attractiveness. 
Then^,  he  says,  I  shower  sparks.  As  I've  already 
told  him,  I'm  a  wild  woman,  and  will  be  hard  to 
tame,  for  as  Victor  Hugo  somewhere  says,  w€ 
women  are  only  perfected  devils ! 


79 


Wednesday  the  Eighth 

I've  cut  off  my  hair,  right  bang  off.  When  I 
got  up  yesterday  morning  with  so  much  work  ahead 
of  me,  with  so  much  to  do  and  so  Httle  time  to  do 
it  in,  I  started  doing  my  hair.  I  also  started  think- 
ing about  that  Frenchman  who  committed  suicide 
after  counting  up  the  number  of  buttons  he  had 
to  button  and  unbutton  every  morning  and  eve- 
ning of  every  day  of  every  year  of  his  hfe.  I 
tried  to  figure  up  the  time  I  was  wasting  on  that 
mop  of  mine.    Then  the  Great  Idea  occurred  to  me. 

I  got  the  scissors,  and  in  six  snips  had  it  off, 
a  big  tangled  pile  of  brownish  gold,  rather  bleachetj 
out  by  the  sun  at  the  ends.  And  the  moment  I  saw 
it  there  on  my  dresser,  and  saw  my  head  in  the 
mirror,  I  was  sorry.  I  looked  like  a  plucked  crow. 
I  could  have  ditched  a  freight-train.  And  I  felt 
positively  light-headed.  But  it  was  too  late  for 
tears.     I  trimmed  off  the  ragged  edges  as  well  as 

80 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

I  could,  and  what  didn't  get  in  my  eyes  got  down 
my  neck  and  itched  so  terribly  that  I  had  to  change 
my  clothes.  Then  I  got  a  nail-punch  out  of  Dinky- 
Dunk's  tool-kit,  and  heated  it  over  the  lamp  and 
gave  a  little  more  wave  to  that  two-inch  shock 
of  stubble.  It  didn't  look  so  bad  then,  and  when 
I  tried  on  Dinky-Dunk's  coat  in  front  of  the  glass 
I  saw  that  I  wouldn't  make  such  a  bad-looking  boy. 
But  I  waited  until  noon  with  my  heart  in  my 
mouth,  to  see  what  Dinky-Dunk  would  say.  What 
he  really  did  say  1  can't  write  here,  for  there  was 
a  wicked  swear-word  mixed  up  in  his  ejaculation 
of  startled  wonder.  Then  he  saw  the  tears  in  my 
eyes,  I  suppose,  for  he  came  running  toward  me 
with  his  arms  out,  and  hugged  me  tight,  and  said 
I  looked  cute,  and  all  he'd  have  to  do  would  be  to 
get  used  to  it.  But  all  dinner  time  he  kept  look- 
ing at  me  as  though  I  were  a  strange  woman,  and 
later  I  saw  him  standing  in  front  of  the  dresser, 
stooping  over  that  tragic  pile  of  tangled  yellow- 
brown  snakes.  It  reminded  me  of  a  man  stooping 
over  a  grave.    I  slipped  away  without  letting  him 

81 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

see  me.  But  this  morning  I  woke  him  up  early 
and  asked  him  if  he  still  loved  his  wife.  And  when 
he  vowed  he  did,  I  tried  to  make  him  tell  me  how 
much.  But  that  stumped  him.  He  compromised 
by  saying  he  couldn't  cheapen  his  love  by  defin- 
ing it  in  words ;  it  was  limitless.  I  followed  him 
out  after  breakfast,  with  a  hunger  in  my  heart 
which  bacon  and  eggs  hadn't  helped  a  bit,  and  told 
him  that  if  he  really  loved  me  he  could  tell  me 
how  much. 

He  looked  right  in  my  eyes,  a  little  pityingly, 
it  seemed  to  me,  and  laughed,  and  grew  solemn 
again.  Then  he  stooped  down  and  picked  up  a 
little  blade  of  prairie-grass,  and  held  it  up  in  front 
of  me. 

"Have  you  any  idea  of  how  far  it  is  from  the 
Rockies  across  to  the  Hudson  Bay  and  from  the 
T^ne  up  to  the  Peace  River  Valley.'"' 

Of  course  I  hadn't. 

"And  have  you  any  Idea  of  how  many  millions 
of  acres  of  land  that  is,  and  how  many  millions 
8£ 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

«f  blades  of  grass  like  this  there  are  in  each  acre?'* 
he  soberly  demanded. 

And  again  of  course  I  hadn't. 

*'Well,  this  one  blade  of  grass  is  the  amount 
of  love  I  am  able  to  express  for  you,  and  all  those 
other  blades  in  all  those  millions  of  acres  is  what 
love  itself  is  !^' 

I  thought  it  over,  just  as  solemnly  as  he  had 
said  it.  I  think  I  was  satisfied.  For  when  my 
Dinky-Dunk  was  away  off  on  the  prairie,  work- 
ing hke  a  nailer,  and  I  was  alone  in  the  shack,  I 
went  to  his  old  coat  hanging  there — ^the  old  coat 
that  had  some  subtle  aroma  of  Dinky-Dunkiness 
itself  about  every  inch  of  it — and  kissed  it  on  the 
sleeve. 

This  afternoon  as  Paddy  and  I  started  for  home 
with  a  pail  of  mushrooms  I  rode  face  to  face  with 
tny  first  coyote.  We  stood  staring  at  each  other. 
My  heart  bounced  right  up  into  my  throat,  and 
for  a  moment  I  wondered  if  I  was  going  to  be  eaten 
by  a  starving  timber-wolf,  with  Dinky-Dunk  find- 

83 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

ing  my  bones  picked  as  clean  as  those  animal-car- 
casses we  see  in  an  occasional  buffalo-wallow.  I 
kept  up  my  end  of  the  stare,  wondering  whether 
to  advance  or  retreat,  and  it  wasn't  until  that  coy- 
ote turned  tail  and  scooted  that  my  courage  came 
back.  Then  Paddy  and  I  went  after  him,  like  the 
wind.  But  we  had  to  give  up.  And  at  supper 
Dinky-Dunk  told  me  coyotes  were  too  cowardly  to 
come  near  a  person,  and  were  quite  harmless.  He 
said  that  even  when  they  showed  their  teeth,  the 
rest  of  their  face  was  apologizing  for  the  threat. 
And  before  supper  was  over  that  coyote,  at  least 
I  suppose  it  was  the  same  coyote,  was  howling  at 
the  rising  full  moon.  I  went  out  with  Dinky- 
Dunk's  gun,  but  couldn't  get  near  the  brute.  Then 
I  came  back. 

"Sing,  you  son-of-a-gun,  sing!"  I  called  out  to 
him  from  the  shack  door.  And  that  shocked  my 
lord  and  master  so  much  that  he  scolded  me,  for 
the  first  time  in  his  life.  And  when  I  poked  his 
Adam's  apple  with  my  finger  he  got  on  his  dig- 
nity. He  was  tired,  poor  boy,  and  I  should  have 
84i 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

remembered  it.  And  when  I  requested  him  not  to 
stand  there  and  stare  at  me  in  the  hieratic  rigidity 
of  an  Egyptian  idol  I  could  see  a  little  flush  of 
anger  go  over  his  face.  He  didn't  say  anything. 
But  he  took  one  of  the  lamps  and  a  three-year-old 
Pail-Mall  Magazine  and  shut  himself  up  in  the 
bunk-house.  / 

Then  I  was  sorry. 

I  tip-toed  over  to  the  door,  and  found  it  was 
locked.  Then  I  went  and  got  my  mouth-organ 
and  sat  meekly  down  on  the  door-step  and  began 
to  play  the  DonH  Be  Cross  waltz.  I  dragged 
it  out  plaintively,  with  a  tjox  humana  tremolo  on 
the  coaxing  little  refrain.  Finally  I  heard  a  smoth- 
ered snort,  and  the  door  suddenly  opened  and 
Dinky-Dunk  picked  me  up,  mouth-organ  and  all. 
He  shook  me  and  said  I  was  a  little  devil,  and  I 
called  him  a  big  British  brute.  But  he  was  laugh- 
ing and  a  wee  bit  ashamed  of  his  temper  and  was 
very  nice  to  me  all  the  rest  of  the  evening. 

I'm  getting,  I  find,  to  depend  a  great  deal  on 
Dinky-Dunk,  and  it  makes  me  afraid,  sometimes, 
85 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

for  the  future.  He  seems  able  to  slip  a  hand  un- 
der my  heart  and  lift  it  up,  exactly  as  though  it 
were  the  chin  of  a  wayward  child.  Yet  I  resent 
his  power,  and  keep  elbowing  for  more  breathing- 
space,  like  a  rush-hour  passenger  in  the  subway 
crowd.  Sometimes,  too,  I  resent  the  over-solemn 
streak  in  his  mental  make-up.  He  abominates  rag- 
time, and  I  have  rather  a  weakness  for  it.  So 
once  or  twice  in  his  dour  days  I've  found  an  al- 
most Satanic  delight  in  singing  The  Humming 
Coon.  And  the  knowledge  that  he'd  like  to  for- 
bid me  singing  rag  seems  to  give  a  zest  to  it.  So 
I  go  about  flashing  my  saber  of  independence: 

"OP  Ephr'm  Johnson  was  a  deacon  of  de  church  in 

Tennessee, 
An'  of  course  it  was  ag'inst  de  rules  t'  sing  rag-time 

melodee !" 

But  I  am  the  one,  I  notice,  who  always  makes 
up  first.  To-night  as  I  was  making  cocoa  before 
we  went  to  bed  I  tried  to  tell  my  Diddums  there 
was  something  positively  doglike  in  my  devotion 
to  him.  He  nickered  like  a  pony  and  said  he  waft 
86 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

the  dog  in  this  deal.  Then  he  pulled  me  over  on 
his  knee  and  said  that  men  get  short-tempered  when 
they  were  tuckered  out  with  worry  and  hard  work, 
and  that  probably  it  would  be  hard  for  even  two 
of  the  seraphim  always  to  get  along  together  in 
a  two-by-four  shack,  where  you  couldn't  even  have 
a  dead-line  for  the  sake  of  dignity.  It  was  mostly 
his  fault,  he  knew,  but  he  was  going  to  try  to  fight 
against  it.  And  I  experienced  the  unreasonable 
joy  of  an  unreasonable  woman  who  has  succeeded 
in  putting  the  man  she  loves  with  all  her  heart 
and  soul  in  the  wrong.  So  I  could  afford  to  be 
humble  myself,  and  make  a  foolish  lot  of  fuss  over 
him.  But  I  shall  always  fight  for  my  elbow-room. 
For  there  are  times  when  my  Dinky-Dunk,  for  all 
his  bigness  and  strength,  has  to  be  taken  sedately 
in  tow,  the  same  as  a  racing  automobile  has  to  be 
hauled  through  the  city  streets  by  a  dinky  little 
3ow-power  hack-car! 


Saturday  the  Tenth 

We've  had  a  cold  spell,  with  heavy  frosts  at 
night,  but  the  days  are  still  glorious.  The  over- 
cast days  are  so  few  in  the  West  that  I've  been 
wondering  if  the  optimism  of  the  Westerners  isn't 
really  due  to  the  sunshine  they  get.  Who  could 
be  gloomy  under  such  golden  skies?  Every  pore 
of  my  body  has  a  throat  and  is  shouting  out  a 
Tarentella  Sincera  of  its  own!  But  it  isn't  the 
weather  that  has  keyed  me  up  this  time.  It's  an- 
other wagon-load  of  supplies  which  Olie  teamed 
out  from  Buckhom  yesterday.  I've  got  wall-paper 
and  a  new  iron  bed  for  the  annex,  and  galvanized 
wash-tubs  and  a  crock-chum  and  storm-boots  and 
enough  ticking  to  make  ten  big  pillows,  and  un- 
bleached linen  for  two  dozen  slips — I  love  a  big  pil- 
low— and  I've  been  saving  up  wild-duck  feathers  for 
weeks,  the  downiest  feathers  you  ever  sank  your  ear 
into,  Matilda  Anne ;  and  if  pillows  will  do  it  I'm  go- 
ing to  make  this  house  look  like  a  harem !    Can  you 

88 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

imagine  a  household  with  only  three  pillow-slips, 
which  had  to  be  jerked  off  in  the  morning,  washed^ 
dried  and  ironed  and  put  back  on  their  three  lonely 
little  pillows  before  bedtime?  Well,  there  will  be 
no  more  of  that  in  this  shack. 

But  the  important  news  is  that  I've  got  a  duck- 
gun,  the  duckiest  duck-gun  you  ever  saw,  and  wad- 
ers, and  a  coon-skin  coat  and  cap  and  a  big  leather 
school-bag  for  wearing  over  my  shoulder  on  Paddy. 
The  coat  and  cap  are  like  the  ones  we  used  to  laugh 
at  when  we  went  up  to  Montreal  for  the  tobog- 
ganing, in  the  days  when  I  was  young  and  foolish 
and  willing  to  sacrifice  comfort  on  the  altar  of  out- 
ward appearances.  The  coon-skins  make  me  look 
like  a  Laplander,  but  they'll  be  mighty  comfy  when 
the  cold  weather  comes,  for  Dinky-Dunk  says  it 
drops  to  forty  and  fifty  below,  sometimes. 

I  also  got  a  lot  of  small  stuff  I'd  written  for 
from  the  mail-order  house,  little  feminine  things 
a  woman  simply  lias  to  have.  But  the  big  thing 
was  the  duck-gun. 

I  no  longer  get  heart  failure  when  I  hear  the 
89 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

whir  of  a  prairie-chicken,  but  drop  my  bird  be- 
fore it's  out  of  range.  Poor,  plump,  wounded, 
warm-bodied  little  feathery  things !  Sc«ne  of  them 
keep  on  flying  after  they've  been  shot  clean  through 
the  body,  going  straight  on  for  a  couple  of  hundred 
feet,  or  even  more,  and  then  dropping  Hke  a  stone. 
How  hard-hearted  we  soon  get !  It  used  to  worry  me. 
Now  I  gather  'em  up  as  though  they  were  so  many 
chips  and  toss  them  into  the  wagon-box;  or  into 
my  school-bag,  if  it's  a  private  expedition  of  only 
Paddy  and  me.  And  that's  the  way  life  treats  us, 
too. 

I've  been  practising  on  the  gophers  with  my  new 
gun,  and  with  Dinky-Dunk's  .2^  rifle.  A  gopher 
is  only  a  little  bigger  than  a  chipmunk,  and  usually 
pokes  nothing  more  than  his  head  out  of  his  hole, 
so  when  I  got  thirteen  out  of  fifteen  shots  I  began 
to  feel  that  I  was  a  sharp-shooter.  But  don't  re- 
gard this  as  wanton  cruelty,  for  the  gopher  is 
worse  than  a  rat,  and  in  this  country  the  govern- 
ment agents  supply  homesteaders  with  an  annual 
^   allowance  of  free  strychnine  to  poison  them  off. 

9e 


Sunday  the  Eleventh 

I've  made  my  first  butter,  be  it  recorded — ^but 
in  doing  so  I  managed  to  splash  the  ceiling  and 
the  walls  and  my  own  woolly  head,  for  I  didn't 
have  sense  enough  to  tie  a  wet  cloth  about  the 
handle  of  the  churn-dasher  until  the  damage  had 
been  done.  I  was  too  intent  on  getting  my  butter 
to  pay  attention  to  details,  though  it  took  a  dis- 
heartening long  time  and  my  arms  were  tired  out 
before  I  had  finished.  And  when  I  saw  myself 
spattered  from  head  to  foot  it  reminded  me  of 
what  you  once  said  about  me  and  my  reading,  that 
I  had  the  habit  of  coming  out  of  a  book  like  a 
spaniel  out  of  water,  scattering  ideas  as  I  came. 
But  there  are  not  many  new  books  in  my  life  these 
days.  It  is  mostly  hard  work,  although  I  reminded 
Dinky-Dunk  last  night  that  while  Omar  intimated 
that  love  and  bread  and  wine  were  enough  for  any 
wilderness,  we  mustn't  forget  that  he  also  included 
91 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

a  book  of  verses  underneath  the  bough!  My  lord 
says  that  by  next  year  we  can  line  our  walls  with 
books.  But  I'm  like  Moses  on  Mount  Nebo — ^I 
can  see  my  promised  land,  but  it  seems  a  terribly 
long  way  off.  But  this,  as  Dinky-Dunk  would  say, 
is  not  the  spirit  that  built  Rome,  and  has  carried 
me  away  from  my  butter,  the  making  of  which 
cold-creamed  my  face  until  I  looked  as  though  I 
had  snow  on  my  headlight.  Yet  there  is  real  joy 
in  finding  those  lovely  yellow  granules  in  the  bottom 
of  your  churn  and  then  working  it  over  and  over 
with  a  saucer  in  a  cooking-bowl  until  it  is  one  golden 
mass.  Several  times  before  I'd  shaken  up  sour 
cream  in  a  sealer,  but  this  was  my  first  real  butter- 
making.  I  have  just  discovered,  however,  that  I 
didn't  "wash"  it  enough,  so  that  sill  the  butter- 
milk wasn't  worked  out  of  my  first  dairy-product. 
Dinky-Dunk,  like  the  scholar  and  gentleman  that 
he  is,  swore  that  it  was  worth  its  weight  in  Klon- 
dike gold.    And  next  time  I'll  do  better. 


Q<i) 


Monday  the  Twelfth 

• 

GoiiDEN  weather  again,  with  a  clear  sky  and  soft 
and  balmy  air !  Just  before  our  mid-day  meal  Olie 
arrived  with  mail  for  us.  We've  had  letters  from 
home!  Instead  of  cheering  me  up  they  made  me 
blue,  for  they  seemed  to  bring  word  from  another 
world,  a  world  so  far,  far  away ! 

I  decided  to  have  a  half-day  in  the  open,  so  I 
strapped  on  my  duck-gun  and  off  I  went  on  Paddy, 
as  soon  as  dinner  was  over  and  the  men  had  gone. 
We  went  like  the  wind,  until  both  Paddy  and  I 
were  tired  of  it.  Then  I  found  a  "soft-water" 
pond  hidden  behind  a  fringe  of  scrub-willow  and 
poplar.  The  mid-day  sun  had  warmed  it  to  a 
tempting  temperature.  So  I  hobbled  Paddy,  peeled 
off  and  had  a  most  glorious  bath.  I  had  just 
soaped  down  with  bank-mud  (which  is  an  astonish- 
ingly good  solvent)  and  had  taken  a  header  and 
was  swimming  about  on  my  back,  blinking  up  at 

93 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

the  blue  sky,  as  happy  as  a  mud-turtle  in  a  mill- 
pond,  when  I  heard  Paddy  nicker.  That  disturbed 
me  a  Kttle,  but  I  felt  sure  there  could  be  nobody 
within  miles  of  me.  However,  I  swam  back  to  where 
my  clothes  were,  sunned  myself  dry,  and  was  just 
standing  up  to  shake  out  the  ends  of  this  short- 
cropped  hair  of  mine  when  I  saw  a  man's  head 
ftcross  the  pond,  staring  through  the  bushes  at  me. 
I  don't  know  how  or  why  it  is,  but  I  suddenly 
saw  red.  I  don't  remember  picking  up  the  duck- 
Ifun,  and  I  don't  remember  aiming  it. 

But  I  banged  away,  with  both  barrels,  straight 
at  that  leering  head — or  at  least  it  ought  to  have 
been  a  leering  head,  whatever  that  may  mean !  The 
howl  that  went  up  out  of  the  wilderness,  the  next 
moment,  could  have  been  heard  for  a  mile! 

It  was  Dinky-Dunk,  and  he  said  I  might  have 
put  his  eyes  out  with  bird-shot,  if  he  hadn't  made 
the  quickest  drop  of  his  life.  And  he  also  said 
that  he'd  seen  me,  a  distinct  splash  of  white  against 
the  green  of  the  prairie,  three  good  miles  away, 
and  wasn't  I  ashamed  of  myself,  and  what  would 

94j 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

I  have  done  if  he'd  been  Olie  or  old  man  Dixon? 
But  he  kissed  my  shoulder  where  the  gun-stock  had 
bruised  it,  and  helped  me  dress. 

Then  we  rode  oif  together,  four  or  five  miles 
north,  where  Dinky-Dunk  was  sure  we  could  get  a 
bag  of  duck.  Which  we  did,  thirteen  altogether, 
and  started  for  home  as  the  sun  got  low  and  the 
evening  air  grew  chilly.  It  was  a  heavenly  ride. 
In  the  west  a  little  army  of  thin  blue  clouds  was 
edged  with  blazing  gold,  and  up  between  them 
spread  great  fan-like  shafts  of  amber  light.  Then 
came  a  riot  of  orange  yellow  and  ashes  of  roses 
and  the  palest  of  gold  with  little  islands  of  azure 
in  it.  Then  while  the  dying  radiance  seemed  to 
hold  everything  in  a  luminous  wash  of  air,  the  stars 
came  out,  one  by  one,  and  a  soft  cool  wind  swept 
across  the  prairie,  and  the  light  darkened — ^and  I 
was  glad  to  have  Dinky-Dunk  there  at  my  side, 
or  I  should  have  had  a  little  cry,  for  the  twilight 
prairie  always  makes  me  lonesome  in  a  way  that 
could  never  be  put  into  words. 

I  tried  to  explain  the  feeHng  to  Dinky-Dunk. 
95 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

He  said  he  understood.  "I'm  a  Sour-Dough,  Gee- 
Gee,  but  it  still  gets  me  that  way,"  he  solemnly  con- 
fessed. He  said  that  when  he  listened  to  beautiful 
music  he  felt  the  same.  And  that  got  me  think- 
ing of  grand  opera,  and  of  that  Romeo  and  Ju- 
liet night  at  La  Scala,  in  Milan,  when  I  first  met 
Theobald  Gustav.  Then  I  stopped  to  tell  Dinky- 
Dunk  that  I'd  been  hopelessly  in  love  with  a  tenor 
at  thirteen  and  had  written  in  my  journal:  "I 
shall  die  and  turn  to  dust  still  adoring  him."  Then 
I  told  him  about  my  first  opera,  Rigoletto,  and 
hummed  "ia  Donna  E  Mobile  "  which  of  course 
he  remembered  himself.  It  took  me  back  to  Flor- 
ence, and  to  a  box  at  the  Pagliano,  and  me  all  in 
dimity  and  cork-screw  curls,  weeping  deliciously 
at  a  lady  in  white,  whose  troubles  I  could  not  quite 
understand.  Then  I  got  thinking  of  New  York 
and  the  Metropolitan,  and  poor  old  Morris's  lines  i 

And  still  with  listening  soul  I  hear 
Strains  hushed  for  many  a  noisy  year:. 
The  passionate  chords  which  wake  the  tear, 
The  low-voiced  love-tales  dear.    .    o    . 

96 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

Scarce  changed,  the  same  musicians  play 
The  selfsame  themes  to-day; 
The  silvery  swift  sonatas  ring, 
The  soaring  voices  sing ! 

And  I  could  picture  the  old  Metropolitan  on  a 
Caruso  night.  I  could  see  the  Golden  Horse-Shoe 
and  the  geranium-red  trimmings  and  the  satiny 
white  backs  of  the  women,  and  smell  that  luxurious 
heavy  smell  of  warm  air  and  hothouse  flowers  and 
Paris  perfumery  and  happy  human  bodies  and  hear 
the  whisper  of  silk  along  the  crimson  stairways. 
I  could  see  the  lights  go  down,  in  a  sort  of  sigh, 
before  the  overture  began,  and  the  scared-looking 
blotches  of  white  on  the  musicians'  scores  and  the 
other  blotches  made  by  their  dress-shirt  fronts,  and 
the  violins  going  up  and  down,  up  and  down,  as 
though  they  were  one  piece  of  machinery,  and  then 
the  heavy  curtain  stealing  up,  and  the  thrill  as 
that  new  heaven  opened  up  to  me,  a  gawky  girl 
In  her  first  low-cut  dinner  gown ! 

I  told  Dinky-Dunk  I'd  sat  in  every  corner  of 
that  old  house,  up  in  the  sky-parlor  with  the  Ital- 

97, 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

ian  barbers,  in  press-seats  in  the  second  gallery 
with  dear  old  Fanny-Rain-in-the-Face,  and  in  the 
Westbury's  box  with  the  First  Lady  of  the  Land 
and  a  Spanish  Princess  with  extremely  dirty  nails. 
It  seemed  so  far  away,  another  life  and  another 
world!  And  for  three  hours  of  "Manon"  I'd  be 
willing  to  hang  like  a  chimpanzee  from  the  Met- 
ropolitan's center  chandelier.  I  suddenly  realized 
how  much  I  missed  it.  I  could  have  sung  to  the 
City  as  poor  Charpentier's  "Louise"  sang  to  her 
Paris.  And  a  coyote  howled  up  near  the  trail,  and 
the  prairie  got  dark,  with  a  pale  green  rind  of 
light  along  the  northwest,  and  I  knew  there  would 
be  a  heavy  frost  before  morning. 

To-night  after  supper  my  soul  and  I  sat  down 
and  did  a  bit  of  bookkeeping.  Dinky-Dunk,  who'd 
been  watching  me  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye, 
went  to  the  window  and  said  it  looked  like  a  storm. 
And  I  knew  he  meant  that  I  was  the  Medicine  Hat 
it  was  to  come  from,  for  before  he'd  got  up  fromi 
the  table  he'd  explained  to  me  that  matrimony  was 
like  motoring  because  it  was  really  traveling  by 
98 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

means  of  a  series  of  explosions.  Then  he  tried 
to  explain  that  in  a  few  weeks  the  fall  rush  would 
be  over  and  we'd  have  more  time  for  getting  what 
we  deserved  out  of  life.  But  I  turned  on  him  with 
sudden  fierceness  and  declared  I  wasn't  going  to 
be  merely  an  animal.  I  intended  to  keep  my  soul 
alive,  that  it  was  every  one's  duty,  no  matter  where 
they  were,  to  ennoble  their  spirit  by  keeping  in 
touch  with  the  best  that  has  ever  been  felt  and 
thought. 

When  I  grimly  got  out  my  mouth-organ  and 
played  the  Pilgrim's  Chorus,  as  well  as  I  could 
remember  it,  Dinky-Dunk  sat  listening  in  silent 
wonder.  He  kept  up  the  fire,  and  waited  until  I 
got  through.  Then  he  reached  for  the  dishpan 
and  said,  quite  casually,  "I'm  going  to  help  you 
wash  up  to-night,  Gee-Gee!"  And  so  I  put  away 
the  mouth-organ  and  washed  up.  But  before  I 
went  to  bed  I  got  out  my  Httle  vellum  edition  of 
Browning's  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  and  read 
at  it  industriously,  doggedly,  determinedly,  for  a 
solid  hour.  What  it's  all  about  I  don't  know.  In- 
99 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

stead  of  ennobling  my  spirit  it  only  tired  my  brain 
and  ended  up  in  making  me  so  mad  I  flung  the 
book  into  the  wood-box.  .  .  .  Dinky-Dunk  has 
just  pinned  a  piece  of  paper  on  my  door;  it  is  a 
sentence  from  Epictetus.  And  it  says:  "Better 
it  is  that  great  souls  should  live  in  small  habitations 
than  that  abject  slaves  should  burrow  in  great 
houses  1" 


100 


Sunday  the  Eighteenth 

I  SPENT  an  hour  to-day  trying  to  shoot  a  hen- 
hawk  that's  been  hovering  about  the  shack  all  aft- 
ernoon. He's  after  my  chickens,  and  as  new-laid 
eggs  are  worth  more  than  Browning  to  a  home- 
steader, I  got  out  my  duck-gun.  It  gave  me  a 
feeling  of  impending  evil,  having  that  huge  bird 
hanging  about.  It  reminded  me  there  was  wrong 
and  rapine  in  the  world.  I  hated  the  brute.  But 
I  hid  under  one  of  the  wagon-boxes  and  got  him, 
in  the  end.  I  brought  him  down,  a  tumbling  flurry 
of  wings,  like  Satan's  fall  from  Heaven.  When 
I  ran  out  to  possess  myself  of  his  Satanic  body 
he  was  only  wounded,  however,  and  was  ready  to 
show  fight.  Then  I  saw  red  again.  I  clubbed  him 
with  the  gun-butt,  going  at  him  like  fury.  I  was 
moist  with  perspiration  when  I  got  through  with 
him.  He  was  a  monster.  I  nailed  him  with  his 
wings  out,  on  the  bunk-house  wall,  and  Olie  shouted 
101 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

and  called  Diiikj  Dunk  when  they  came  back  from 
.rounding  up  the  horses,  which  had  got  away  on  the 
range.  Dinky-Dunk  solemnly  warned  me  not  to 
run  risks,  as  he  might  have  taken  an  eye  out,  or 
torn  my  face  with  his  claws.  He  said  he  could 
have  stuffed  and  mounted  my  hawk,  if  I  hadn't 
clubbed  the  poor  thing  almost  to  pieces.  There's 
a  devil  in  me  somewhere,  I  told  Dinky-Dunk.  B^ 
he  only  laughed. 


iw 


Monday  the  Nineteenth 

To-night  Dinkj-Dunk  and  I  spent  a  solid  hour 
trying  to  decide  on  a  name  for  the  shack.  I  wanted 
to  call  it  "Crucknacoola,"  which  is  Gaelic  for  "A 
Little  Hill  of  Sleep,"  but  Dinky-Dunk  brought 
forward  the  objection  that  there  was  no  hill.  Then 
I  suggested  "Bamavista,"  since  about  all  we  can 
see  from  the  door  are  the  stables.  Then  I  said 
"The  Builtmore,"  in  a  spirit  of  mockery,  and  then 
Dinky-Dunk  in  a  spirit  of  irony  suggested  "Casa 
Grande."  And  in  the  end  we  united  on  "Casa 
Grande."  It  is  marvelous  how  my  hair  grows. 
Olie  now  watches  me  studiously  as  I  eat.  I  can 
see  that  he  is  patiently  patterning  his  table  de- 
portment after  mine.  There's  nothing  that  silent 
rough-mannered  man  wouldn't  do  for  me.  I've 
got  so  I  never  notice  his  nose,  any  more  than  I 
used  to  notice  Uncle  Carlton's  receding  chin.     "Bui 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

I  don't  think  Olie  is  getting  enough  to  eat.  All 
his  mind  seems  taken  up  with  trying  to  remember 
not  to  drink  out  of  his  saucer,  as  history  sayeth 
George  Washington  himself  once  did! 


104f 


Tuesday  the  Twentieth 

I  KNEW  that  old  hen-hawk  meant  trouble  for  me 
— and  the  trouble  came,  all  right.  I'm  afraid  I 
can't  tell  about  it  very  coherently,  but  this  is  how 
it  began:  I  was  alone  yesterday  afternoon,  busy 
in  the  shack,  when  a  Mounted  PoHceman  rode  up 
to  the  door,  and,  for  a  moment,  nearly  frightened 
the  life  out  of  me.  I  just  stood  and  stared  at  him, 
for  he  was  the  first  really,  truly  live  man,  outside 
Olie  and  my  husband,  I'd  seen  for  so  long.  And 
he  looked  very  dashing  in  his  scarlet  jacket  and 
yellow  facings.  But  I  didn't  have  long  to  meditate 
on  his  color  scheme,  for  he  calmly  announced  that 
a  ranchman  named  McMein  had  been  murdered  by 
a  drunken  cowboy  in  a  wage  dispute,  and  the  mur- 
derer had  been  seen  heading  for  the  Cochrane 
Ranch.  He  (the  M.  P.)  inquired  if  I  would  object 
to  his  searching  the  buildings. 

Would  I  object?  I  most  assuredly  did  not,  for 
105 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

little  chills  began  to  plaj  up  and  down  my  spinal 
column,  and  I  wasn't  exactly  in  love  with  the  idea 
of  having  an  escaped  murderer  crawling  out  of  a 
hay-stack  at  midnight  and  cutting  my  throat.  The 
ranchman  McMein  had  been  killed  on  Saturday, 
and  the  cowboy  had  been  kept  on  the  run  for  two 
days.  As  I  was  being  told  this  I  tried  to  remem- 
ber where  Dinky-Dunk  had  stowed  away  his  re- 
volver-holster and  his  hammerless  ejector  and  hi« 
Colt  repeater.  But  I  made  that  handsome  young 
man  in  the  scarlet  coat  come  right  into  the  shack 
and  begin  his  search  by  looking  under  the  bed,  and 
then  going  down  the  cellar. 

I  stood  holding  the  trap-door  and  warned  him 
not  to  break  my  pickle-jars.  Then  he  came  up 
and  stood  squinting  thoughtfully  out  through  the 
doorway. 

"Have  you  got  a  gun?"  he  suddenly  asked  me. 

I  showed  him  my  duck-gun  with  its  silver  mount- 
ings, and  he  smiled  a  little. 

"Haven't  you  a  rifle?"  he  demanded. 

I  explained  that  my  husband  had,  and  he  stil 
106 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

stood  squinting  out  through  the  doorway  as  I 
poked  about  the  shack-corners  and  found  Dinky- 
Dunk's  repeater.  He  was  a  very  authoritative  and 
self-assured  young  man.  He  took  the  rifle  from 
me,  examined  the  magazine  and  made  sure  it  was 
loaded.     Then  he  handed  it  back. 

"I've  got  to  search  those  buildings  and  stacks," 
he  told  me.  "And  I  can  only  be  in  one  place  at 
once.  If  you  see  a  man  break  from  und*r  cover 
anywhere,  when  I'm  inside,  be  so  good  as  to  shoot 
himr 

He  started  off  without  another  word,  with  his 
big  army  revolver  in  his  hand.  My  teeth  began 
to  do  a  little  fox-trot  all  by  themselves. 

"Wait!  Stop!"  I  shouted  after  him.  "Don't 
go  away!" 

He  stopped  and  asked  me  what  was  wrong.  "I 
— ^I  don't  want  to  shoot  a  man!  I  don't  want  to 
shoot  any  man !"     I  tried  to  explain  to  him. 

*'You  probably  won't  have  to,"  was  his  cool  re- 
sponse. "But  it's  better  to  do  that  than  have  him 
shoot  yoUy  isn't  it?" 

107 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

Whereupon  Mr.  Red-Coat  made  straight  /or  the 
hay-stacks,  and  I  stood  in  the  doorway,  with 
Dinky-Dunk's  rifle  in  my  hands  and  my  knees  shak- 
ing a  httle. 

I  watched  him  as  he  beat  about  the  hay-stacks. 
Then  I  got  tired  of  holding  the  heavy  weapon  and 
leaned  it  against  the  shack-wall.  I  watched  the 
red  coat  go  in  through  the  stable  door,  and  felt 
vaguely  dismayed  at  the  thought  that  its  wearer 
was  now  quite  out  of  sight. 

Then  my  heart  stopped  beating.  For  out  of 
a  pile  of  straw  which  Olie  had  dumped  not  a.  hun- 
dred feet  away  from  the  house,  to  line  a  pit  for 
our  winter  vegetables,  a  man  suddenly  erupted. 
He  seemed  to  come  up  out  of  the  very  earth,  like 
a  mushroom. 

He  was  the  most  repulsive-looking  man  I  ever 
had  the  pleasure  of  casting  eyes  on.  His  clothes 
were  ragged  and  torn  and  stained  with  mud.  His 
face  was  covered  with  stubble  and  his  cheeks  were 
hollow,  and  his  skin  was  just  about  the  color  of  a 
new  saddle. 

108 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIIE 

I  could  see  the  whites  of  his  eyes  as  he  ran  for 
the  shack,  looking  over  his  shoulder  toward  the 
stable  door  as  he  came.  He  had  a  revolver  in  his 
hand.  I  noticed  that,  but  it  didn't  seem  to  trouble 
me  much.  I  suppose  I'd  already  been  frightened 
us  much  as  mortal  flesh  could  be  frightened.  In 
fact,  I  was  thinking  quite  clearly  what  to  do,  and 
didn't  hesitate  for  a  moment. 

*'Put  that  silly  thing  down,"  I  told  him,  as  he 
ran  up  to  me  with  his  head  lowered  and  that  in- 
describably desperate  look  in  his  big  frightened 
eyes.  "If  you're  not  a  fool  I  can  get  you  hidden," 
I  told  him.  It  reassured  me  to  see  that  his  knees 
were  shaking  much  more  than  mine,  as  he  stood 
there  in  the  center  of  the  shack!  I  stooped  over 
the  trap-door  and  lifted  it  up.  "Get  down  there 
quick!  He's  searched  that  cellar  and  won't  go 
through  it  again.  Stay  there  until  I  say  he's 
gone !" 

He  slipped  over  to  the  trap-door  and  went  slowly 
down  the  steps,  with  his  eyes  narrowed  and  his 
revolver  held  up  in  front  of  him,  as  though  he  still 
109 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

half  expected  to  find  some  one  there  to  confront 
him  with  a  blunderbuss.  Then  I  promptly  shut  the 
trap-door.     But  there  was  no  way  of  locking  it. 

I  had  my  murderer  there,  trapped,  but  the  ques- 
tion was  to  keep  him  there.  Your  little  Chaddie 
didn't  give  up  many  precious  moments  to  reverie. 
I  tiptoed  into  the  bedroom  and  lifted  the  mattress, 
bedding  and  all,  off  the  bedstead.  I  tugged  it  out 
and  put  it  silently  down  over  the  trap-door.  Then, 
without  making  a  sound,  I  turned  the  table  over 
o«L  it.  But  he  could  still  lift  that  table,  I  knew, 
even  with  me  sitting  on  top  of  it.  So  I  started  to 
pile  things  on  the  overturned  table,  until  it  looked 
like  a  moving-van  ready  for  a  May-Day  migration. 
Then  I  sat  on  top  of  that  pile  of  household  goods, 
reached  for  Dinky-Dunk's  repeater,  and  deliber- 
ately fired  a  shot  up  through  the  open  door. 

I  sat  there,  studying  my  pile,  feeling  sure  a  re- 

volver  bullet  couldn't  possibly  come  up  through  all 

that  stuff.     But  before  I  had  much  time  to  think 

about  this  my  corporal  of  the  R.  N.  W.  M.  P. 

110 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

(which  means,  Matilda  Anne,  the  Royal  North- 
West  Mounted  Police)  came  through  the  door  on 
the  run.  He  looked  relieved  when  he  saw  me  tri- 
umphantly astride  that  overturned  table  loaded  up 
with  about  all  my  household  junk. 

"I've  got  him  for  you,"  I  calmly  announced. 

"You've  got  what?"  he  said,  apparently  thinking 
I'd  gone  mad, 

"I've  got  your  man  for  you,"  I  repeated.  "He's 
down  there  in  my  cellar."  And  in  one  minute  I'd 
explained  just  what  had  happened.  There  was  no 
parley,  no  deliberation,  no  hesitation. 

"Hadn't  you  better  go  outside,"  he  suggested  as 
he  started  piling  the  things  off  the  trap-door. 

"You're  not  going  down  there?"  I  demanded. 

"Why  not?"  he  asked. 

**But  he's  got  a  revolver,"  I  cried  out,  "and  he's 
sure  to  shoot!" 

"That's  why  I  think  it  might  be  better  for  you 
to  step  outside  for  a  moment  or  two,"  was  my  sol- 
dier boy's  casual  answer. 
Ill 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

I  walked  over  and  got  Dinky-Dunk's  repeater. 
Then  I  crossed  to  the  far  side  of  the  shack,  with 
the  rifle  in  my  hands. 

"I'm  going  to  stay,"  I  announced. 

"All  right,"  was  the  officer's  unconcerned  answer 
as  he  tossed  the  mattress  to  one  side  and  with  one 
quick  pull  threw  up  the  trap-door. 

A  shot  rang  out,  from  below,  as  the  door  swung 
back  against  the  wall.  But  it  was  not  repeated,  for 
the  man  in  the  red  coat  jumped  bodily,  heels  first, 
into  that  black  hole.  He  didn't  seem  to  count  on  the 
risk,  or  on  what  might  be  ahead  of  him.  He  just 
jumped,  spurs  down,  on  that  other  man  with  the 
revolver  in  his  hand.  I  could  hear  little  grunts, 
and  wheezes,  and  a  thud  or  two  against  the  cellar 
steps.  Then  there  was  silence,  except  for  one 
double  "click-click"  which  I  couldn't  understand. 

Oh,  Matilda  Anne,  how  I  watched  that  cellar 
opening  1  And  I  saw  a  back  with  a  red  coat  on  it 
slowly  rise  out  of  the  hole.  He,  the  man  who 
owned  the  back  of  course,  was  dragging  the  other 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

man  bodily  up  the  narrow  little  stairs.  There 
was  a  pair  of  handcuffs  already  on  his  wrists  and 
he  seemed  dazed  and  helpless,  for  that  slim-looking 
soldier  boy  had  pummeled  him  unmercifully,  knock- 
ing out  his  two  front  teeth,  one  of  which  I  found 
on  the  doorstep  when  I  was  sweeping  up. 

"I'm  sorry,  but  I'll  have  to  take  one  of  your 
horses  for  a  day  or  two,"  was  all  my  R.  N.  W.  M. 
P.  hero  condescended  to  say  to  me  as  he  poked  an 
arm  through  his  prisoner's  and  helped  him  out 
through  the  door. 

"What— what  will  they  do  with  him?"  I  called 
out  after  the  corporal. 

"Hang  him,  of  course,"  was  the  curt  answer. 

Then  I  sat  down  to  think  things  over,  and,  like  an 
old  maid  with  the  vapors,  decided  I  wouldn't  be 
any  the  worse  for  a  cup  of  good  strong  tea.  And 
by  the  time  I'd  had  my  tea,  and  straightened  things 
up,  and  incidentally  discovered  that  no  less  than 
five  of  my  cans  of  mushrooms  had  been  broken  to 
bits  below-stairs,  I  heard  the  rumble  of  the  wagon 
113 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

and  knew  that  Olie  and  Dinky-Dunk  were  back. 
And  I  drew  a  long  breath  of  relief,  for  with  aU  their 
drawbacks,  men  are  not  a  bad  thing  to  have  about, 
now  and  then ! 


114 


Thursday  the  Twenty -second 

It  was  early  Tuesday  morning  that  Dinky-Dunk 
firmly  announced  that  he  and  I  were  going  off  on  a 
three-day  shooting-trip.  I  hadn't  slept  well,  the 
night  before,  for  my  nerves  were  still  rather  upset, 
and  Dinky-Dunk  said  I  needed  a  picnic.  So  we 
got  guns  and  cartridges  and  blankets  and  slickers 
and  cooking  things,  and  stowed  them  away  in  the 
wagon-box.  Then  we  made  a  list  of  the  provisions 
we'd  need,  and  while  Dinky-Dunk  bagged  up  some 
oats  for  the  team  I  was  busy  packing  the  grub-box. 
And  I  packed  it  cram  full,  and  took  along  the  old 
tin  bread-box,  as  well,  with  pancake  flour  and  dried 
fruit  and  an  extra  piece  of  bacon — and  bacon  it  is 
now  called  in  this  shack,  for  I  have  positively  for- 
bidden Dinky-Dunk  ever  to  speak  of  it  as  "sow- 
belly" or  even  as  a  "slice  of  grunt"  again. 

Then  off  we  started  across  the  prairie,  after  duly 
instructing  Olie  as  to  feeding  the  chickens  and  tak* 
115 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

ing  care  of  the  cream  and  finishing  up  the  pit  for 
the  winter  vegetables.  Still  once  again  Olie 
thought  we  were  both  a  little  mad,  I  believe,  for  we 
had  no  more  idea  where  we  were  going  than  the 
man  in  the  moon. 

But  there  was  something  glorious  in  the  thought 
of  gipsying  across  the  autumn  prairie  like  that, 
without  a  thought  or  worry  as  to  where  we  must 
stop  or  what  trail  we  must  take.  It  made  every 
day's  movement  a  great  adventure.  And  the 
weather  was  divine. 

We  slept  at  night  under  the  wagon-box,  with  a 
tarpaulin  along  one  side  to  keep  out  the  wind,  and 
a  fire  flickering  in  our  faces  on  the  other  side,  and 
the  horses  tethered  out,  and  the  stars  wheeling  over- 
head, and  the  peace  of  God  in  our  hearts.  How 
good  every  meal  tasted !  And  how  that  keen  sharp 
air  made  snuggling  down  under  a  couple  of  Hudson 
Bay  five-point  blankets  a  luxury  to  be  spoken  of 
only  in  the  most  reverent  of  whispers!  And  there 
was  a  time,  as  you  already  know,  when  I  used  to 
take  bromide  and  sometimes  even  sulphonal  to  make 
116 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

me  sleep !  But  here  it  is  so  different !  To  get  leg- 
weary  in  the  open  air,  tramping  about  the  sedgy 
slough-sides  after  mallard  and  canvas-back,  to  smell 
coffee  and  bacon  and  frying  grouse  in  the  cool  of 
the  evening,  across  a  thin  veil  of  camp-fire  smoke, 
to  see  the  tired  world  turn  over  on  its  shoulder  and 
go  to  sleep — it's  all  a  sort  of  monumental  lullaby. 
The  prairie  wind  seems  to  seek  you  out,  and  make 
a  bet  with  the  Great  Dipper  that  he'll  have  you  off 
in  forty  winks,  and  the  orchestra  of  the  spheres 
whispers  through  its  million  strings  and  sings  your 
soul  to  rest.  For  I  tell  you  here  and  now,  Matilda 
Anne,  I,  poor,  puny,  good-for-nothing,  insignifi- 
cant I,  have  heard  that  music  of  the  spheres  as 
clearly  as  you  ever  heard  Funiculi-Funicula  on 
that  little  Naples  steamer  that  used  to  take  you  to 
Capri.  And  when  I'd  crawl  out  from  under  that 
old  wagon-box,  like  a  gopher  out  of  his  hole,  in  the 
first  delicate  rosiness  of  dawn,  I'd  feel  unutterably 
grateful  to  be  alive,  to  hear  the  cantatas  of  health 
singing  deep  in  my  soul,  to  know  that  whatever  life 
may  do  to  me,  I'd  snatched  my  share  of  happiness 
117 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

from  the  pantry  of  the  gods!  And  the  endless 
change  of  color,  from  the  tawny  fox-glove  on  the 
lighter  land,  the  pale  yellow  of  a  lion's  skin  in 
the  slanting  autumn  sun,  to  the  quavering,  shim- 
mering glories  of  the  Northern  Lights  that  dance 
in  the  north,  that  fling  out  their  banners  of  ruby 
and  gold  and  green,  and  tremble  and  merge  and 
pulse  until  I  feel  that  I  can  hear  the  clash  of  invisi^ 
ble  cymbals.  I  wonder  if  you  can  understand  my 
feeling  when  I  pulled  the  hat-pin  out  of  my  old 
gray  Stetson  yesterday,  uncovered  my  head,  and 
looked  straight  up  into  the  blue  firmament  above 
me.  Then  I  said,  "Thank  you,  God,  for  such  a 
beautiful  day!" 

Dinky-Dunk  promptly  said  that  I  was  blasphem- 
ous— ^he's  so  strict  and  solemn !  But  as  I  stared  up 
Into  the  depths  of  that  intense  opaline  light,  so 
clear,  so  pure,  I  realized  how  air,  just  air  and 
nothing  else,  could  leave  a  scatter-brained  lady  like 
me  half-seas  over.  Only  it's  a  champagne  that 
never  leaves  you  with  a  headache  the  next  day  1 


118 


Saturday  the  Twenty-fourth 

Dinky-Dunk,  who  seems  intent  on  keeping  mj 
mind  occupied,  brought  me  home  a  bundle  of  old 
magazines  last  night.  They  were  so  frayed  and 
thumbed-over  that  some  of  the  pages  reminded  me 
of  well-worn  bank-notes.  I've  been  reading  some  of 
the  stories,  and  they  all  seem  silly.  Everybody  ap- 
pears to  be  in  love  with  somebody  else's  wife.  Then 
the  people  are  all  divided  so  strictly  into  two  classes, 
the  good  and  the  bad !  As  for  the  other  man's  wife, 
prairie-life  would  soon  knock  that  nonsense  out  of 
people.  There  isn't  much  room  for  the  Triangle 
in  a  two-by-four  shack.  Life's  so  normal  and  nat- 
ural and  big  out  here  that  a  Pierre  Loti  would  be 
kicked  into  a  sheep-dip  before  he  could  use  up 
his  first  box  of  face-rouge!  You  want  your  own 
wife,  and  want  her  so  bad  you're  satisfied.  Not 
that  Dinky-Dunk  and  I  are  so  goody-goody !  We're 
Just  healthy  and  human,  that's  all,  and  we'd  never 
119 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

do  for  fiction.  After  meals  we  push  away  the 
dishes  and  sit  side  by  side,  with  our  arms  across 
each  other's  shoulders,  full  of  the  joy  of  life,  sat- 
isfied, happy,  healthy-minded,  now  and  then  a  little 
Rabelaisian  in  our  talk,  meandering  innocent-eyed 
through  those  earthier  intimacies  which  most  mar- 
ried people  seem  to  face  without  shame,  so  long  as 
the  facing  is  done  in  secret.  We  don't  seem  ashamed 
of  that  terribly  human  streak  in  us.  And  neither  of 
u»  is  bad,  at  heart.  But  I  know  we're  not  like  those 
miigazine  characters,  who  all  seem  to  have  Florida- 
water  instead  of  red  blood  in  their  veins,  and  are  so 
far',  far  away  from  life. 

Yet  even  that  dip  into  politely  erotic  fictioii 
seemed  to  canalize  my  poor  little  grass-grown  mind 
into  activity,  and  Diddums  and  I  sat  up  until  the 
wee  5;ma'  hours  discoursing  on  life  and  letters.  He 
started  me  off  by  somewhat  pensively  remarking 
that  all  women  seem  to  want  to  be  intellectual  and 
have  SI  salon, 

"No,  Dinky-Dunk,  I  don't  want  a  salon"  I 
promptly  announced.  "I  never  did  want  one,  for 
120 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

I  don't  believe  they  were  as  exciting  as  we  imagine* 
And  I  hate  literary  people  almost  as  much  as  T 
hate  actors.  I  always  felt  they  were  like  stage- 
scenery,  not  made  for  close  inspection.  For  after 
five  winters  in  New  York  and  a  couple  in  London 
you  can't  help  bumping  into  the  Bohemian  type, 
not  to  mention  an  occasional  collision  with  'em  up 
and  down  the  Continent.  When  they're  female  they 
6,lways  seem  to  wear  the  wrong  kind  of  corsets.  And 
when  they're  male  they  watch  themselves  in  the  mir- 
rors, or  talk  so  much  about  themselves  that  you 
haven't  a  chance  to  talk  about  yourself — ^which  is 
really  the  completest  definition  of  a  bore,  isn't  it? 
I'd  much  rather  know  them  through  their  books  than 
through  those  awful  Sunday  evening  soirees  where 

poor  old  leonine  M used  to  perspire  reading 

those  Socialist  poems  of  his  to  the  adoring  ladies, 
and  Sanguinary  John  used  to  wear  the  same  flannel 
shirt  that  shielded  him  from  the  Polar  blasts  up  in 
Alaska — open  at  the  throat,  and  all  that  sort  of 
thing,  just  like  a  movie-actor  cowboy,  only  John 
had  grown  a  little  stout  and  he  kept  spoiling  the 
121 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

Strong-Man  picture  by  so  everlastingly  posing  si 
one  end  of  the  grand-piano!  You  know  the  way 
they  do  it,  one  pensive  elbow  on  the  piano-end  and 
the  delicately  drooping  palm  holding  up  the  weary 
brains,  the  same  as  you  prop  up  a  King-orange 
bough  when  it  gets  too  heavy  with  fruit !  And  theit 
he  had  a  lovely  bang  and  a  voice  like  a  maiden-lady 
from  Maine.  And  take  it  from  me,  O  lord  and  mas- 
ter, that  man  devoured  all  his  raw  beef  and  blood  on 
his  typewriter-ribbon.  I  dubbed  him  the  King 
of  the  Eye-Socket  school,  and  instead  of  getting 
angry  he  actually  thanked  me  for  it.  That  was 
the  sort  of  advertising  he  was  after." 

Dinky-Dunk  grinned  a  little  as  I  rattled  on.  Then 
he  grew  serious  again.  "Why  is  it,"  he  asked,  "a 
writer  in  Westminster  Abbey  Is  always  a  genius, 
but  a  writer  in  the  next  room  is  rather  a  joke?" 

I  tried  to  explain  It  for  him.  "Because  writers 
are  like  Indians.  The  only  good  ones  are  the  dead 
ones.  And  it's  the  same  with  those  siren  affinitief 
of  history.  Annie  Laurie  lived  to  be  eighty,  though 
the  ballad  doesn't  say  so.  And  Lady  Hamilton  diet 
122 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

poor  and  ugly  and  went  around  with  red  herrings 
in  her  pocket.  And  Cleopatra  was  really  a  red- 
headed old  political  schemer,  and  Paris  got  tired 
of  Helen  of  Troy.  Which  means  that  history,  like 
literature,  is  only  Le  mensonge  convenuT* 

This  made  Dinky-Dunk  sit  up  and  stare  at  me. 
"Look  here,  Gee-Gee,  I  don't  mind  a  bit  of  book- 
learning,  but  I  hate  to  see  you  tear  the  whole 
tree  of  knowledge  up  by  the  roots  and  knock  me 
down  with  it!  And  it  was  salons  we  were  talking 
about,  and  not  the  wicked  ladies  of  the  past !" 

"Well,  the  only  salon  I  ever  saw  in  America  had 
the  commercial  air  of  a  millinery  opening  where  tea 
happened  to  be  served,"  I  promptly  declared.  "And 
the  only  American  woman  I  ever  knew  who  wanted 
to  have  a  salon  was  a  girl  we  used  to  call  Asafet- 
ida  Anne.  And  if  I  explained  why  you'd  make  a 
much  worse  face  than  that,  my  Diddums.  But  she 
had  a  weakness  for  black  furs  and  never  used  to 
wash  her  neck.  So  the  Plimpton  Mark  was  always 
there!" 

"Don't  get  bitter,  Gee-Gee,"  announced  Dinky- 
123 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

Dunk  as  he  proceeded  to  light  his  pipe.  And  I  could 
afford  to  laugh  at  his  solemnity. 

"I'm  not  bitter,  Honey  Chile;  I'm  only  glad  I 
got  away  from  all  that  Bohemian  rubbish.  You 
may  call  me  a  rattle-box,  and  accuse  me  of  being 
temperamental  now  and  then — ^which  I'm  not — ^but 
the  one  thing  in  life  which  I  love  is  sanity.  And 
that,  Dinky-Dunk,  is  why  I  love  you,  even  though 
you  are  only  a  big  sunburnt  farmer  fighting  and 
planning  and  grinding  away  for  a  home  for  an 
empty-headed  wife  who's  going  to  fail  at  every- 
thing but  making  you  love  her  1" 

Then  followed  a  few  moments  when  I  wasn't 
able  to  talk, 

.    .    .    The  sequel's  scarce  essential — 
Nay,  more  than  this,  I  hold  it  still 
Profoundly  confidential! 

Then  as  we  sat  there  side  by  side  I  got  thinking 
of  the  past  and  of  the  Bohemians  before  whom  I 
had  once  burned  incense.  And  remembering  a  cer- 
tain visit  to  Box  Hill  with  Lady  Agatha's  mother, 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

years  and  years  ago,  I  had  to  revise  my  verdict  on 
authors,  for  one  of  the  warmest  memories  in  all 
my  life  is  that  of  dear  old  Meredith  in  his  wheel- 
chair, with  his  bearded  face  still  flooded  with  its 
kindly  inner  light  and  his  spirit  still  mellow  with  its 
unquenchable  love  of  life.  And  once  as  a  child,  I 
went  on  to  tell  Dinky-Dunk,  I  had  met  Stevenson. 
It  was  at  Mentone,  and  I  can  still  remember  him 
leaning  over  and  taking  my  hand.  His  own  hand 
was  cold  and  lean,  like  a  claw,  and  with  the  quick 
instinct  of  childhood  I  realized,  too,  that  he  was 
condescending  as  he  spoke  to  me,  for  all  the  laugH 
that  showed  the  white  teeth  under  his  drooping 
black  mustache.  Wrong  as  it  seemed,  I  didn't 
like  him  any  more  than  I  afterward  liked  the  Sar- 
gent portrait  of  him,  which  was  really  an  echo  of 
my  own  first  impression,  though  often  and  often 
I've  tried  to  blot  out  that  first  unfair  estimate  of 
a  real  man  of  genius.  There's  so  much  in  the  Child's 
Garden  of  Verse  that  I  love ;  there's  so  much  in  the 
man's  life  that  demands  admiration,  that  it  seems 
1^5 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

wrong  not  to  capitulate  to  his  charm.  But  when 
one's  own  family  are  one's  biographers  it's  hard  to 
be  kept  human.  "Yet  there's  one  thing,  Dinky- 
Dunk,  that  I  do  respect  him  for,"  I  went  on.  "He 
had  seen  the  loveliest  parts  of  this  world,  and,  when 
he  had  to,  he  could  light-heartedly  give  it  all  up  and 
rough  it  in  this  American  West  of  ours,  even  as 
you  and  I !"  Whereupon  Dinky-Dunk  argued  that 
we  ought  to  forgive  an  invalid  his  stridulous 
preaching  about  bravery  and  manliness  and  his 
over-emphasis  of  fortitude,  since  it  was  plainly 
based  on  an  effort  to  react  against  a  constitutional 
weakness  for  which  he  himself  couldn't  be  blamed. 

And  I  confessed  that  I  could  forgive  him  more 
easily  than  I  could  Sanguinary  John  with  his  lit- 
erary Diabolism  and  that  ostentatious  stone-age 
blugginess  with  which  he  loved  to  give  the  ladies 
goose-flesh,  pretending  he  was  a  bull  in  a  china- 
shop  when  he's  really  only  a  white  mouse  in  an 
ink-pot !  And  after  Dinky-Dunk  had  knocked  out 
his  pipe  and  wound  up  his  watch  he  looked  over  at 
me  with  his  slow  Scotch-Canadian  smile.  "For  a 
1^6 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

couple  of  hay-seeds  who  have  been  harpooning  the 
salon  idea,"  he  solemnly  announced,  "I  call  this 
quite  a  literary  evening!"  But  what's  the  use  of 
having  an  idea  or  two  in  your  head  if  you  can't 
air  'em  now  and  then? 


1«7 


Tuesday  the  Twenty-seventh 

To-day  I  stumbled  on  the  surprise  of  my  life !  It 
was  A  Man !  I  took  Paddy  and  cantered  over  to  the 
old  Titchborne  Ranch  and  was  prowling  around  the 
corral,  hoping  I  might  find  a  few  belated  mush- 
rooms. But  nary  a  one  was  there.  So  I  whistled 
on  my  four  fingers  for  Paddy  (I've  been  teaching 
Mm  to  come  at  that  call)  and  happened  to  glance 
in  the  direction  of  the  abandoned  shack.  Then  I 
saw  the  door  open,  and  out  walked  a  man. 

He  was  a  young  man,  in  puttees  and  knickers  and 
Norfolk  jacket,  and  he  was  smoking  a  cigarette.  He 
stared  at  me  as  though  I  were  the  Missing  Link. 
Then  he  said  "Hello!"  rather  inadequately,  it 
seemed  to  me. 

'      I  answered  back  "Hello,"  and  wondered  whether 

to  take  to  my  heels  or  not.     But  my  courage  got 

Its  second  wind,  and  I  stayed.  Then  we  shook  hands, 

.very  formally,  and  explained  who  we  were.    And  I 

128 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

^discovered    that    his    name   was    Percival    Benson 

) 

iWoodhouse  (and  the  Lord  forgive  me  if  they  ever 
call  him  Percy  for  short  1)  and  that  his  aunt  is  t^e 

Countess  of  D and  that  he  knows  a  number 

.of  people  you  and  Lady  Agatha  have  often  spolwn 
of.  He's  got  a  Japanese  servant  called  Kino,  or 
perhaps  it's  spelt  Keeno,  I  don't  know  which,  who's 
house-keeper,  laundress,  'valet,  gardener,  groom  wud 
^chef,  all  in  one, —  so,  at  least  Percival  Benson  con- 
fessed to  me.  He  also  confessed  that  he'd  bought 
the  Titchborne  Ranch,  from  photographs,  from 
*^one  of  those  land  chaps"  in  London.  He  wanted 
to  rough  it  a  bit,  and  they  told  him  there  would  be 
jolly  good  game  shooting.  So  he  even  b>«»ught 
along  an  elephant-gun,  which  his  cousin  had  used 
in  India.  The  photographs  which  the  "land  ^hap" 
'had  showed  him  turned  out  to  be  pictures  of  the 
Selkirks.  And,  taking  it  all  in  all,  he  fanci^  that 
Jie'd  been  jolly  well  bunked.  But  Percival  seemed 
to  accept  it  with  the  stoicism  of  the  well-bom  Brit- 
isher. He'd  have  a  try  at  the  place,  althou^A  there 
was  no  game. 

129 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

"But  there  is  game,"  I  told  him,  "slathers  of  it» 
oodles  of  it !" 

He  mildly  inquired  where  and  what  ?  I  told  him : 
Wild  duck,  prairie-chicken,  wild  geese,  jack-rabbits> 
now  and  then  a  fox,  and  loads  of  coyotes.  He  ex- 
plained, then,  that  he  meant  big  game — and  how 
grandly  those  two  words,  "big  game,"  do  roll  off 
the  English  tongue!  He  has  a  sister  in  the  Ba- 
hamas, who  may  join  him  next  summer  if  he  should 
decide  to  stick  it  out.  He  considered  that  it  would 
be  a  bit  rough  for  a  girl,  during  the  winter  season 
up  here. 

Yet  before  I  go  any  further  I  must  describe 
Percival  Benson  Woodhouse  to  you,  for  he's  not 
only  "our  sort,"  but  a  type  as  well. 

In  the  first  place,  he's  a  Magdalen  College  man, 
the  sort  we've  seen  going  up  and  down  the  High 
many  and  many  a  time.  He's  rather  gaunt  and 
rather  tall,  and  he  stoops  a  little.  "At  home"  they 
call  it  the  "Oxford  stoop,"  if  I'm  not  greatly  mis^- 
taken.  His  hands  are  thin  and  long  and  bony. 
His  eyes  are  nice,  and  he  looks  very  good  form. 
130 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

I  mean  he's  the  sort  of  man  you'd  never  take  for 
the  "outsider"  or  "rotter."  He's  the  sort  who  seem 
to  have  the  royal  privilege  of  doing  even  doubtfully 
polite  things  and  yet  doing  them  in  such  a  way  as 
to  make  them  seem  quite  proper.  I  don't  know 
whether  I  make  that  clear  or  not,  but  one  thing 
Is  clear,  and  this  is  that  our  Percival  Benson  is  an 
aristocrat.  You  see  it  in  his  over-sensitive,  over- 
refined,  almost  womanishly  delicate  face,  with  those 
idealizing  and  quite  unpractical  eyes  of  his.  You 
see  it  m  the  thin,  high-arched,  bony  nose  (almost  as 
fine  a  beak  as  the  one  belonging  to  His  Grace,  the 

Duke  of  M !)  and  you  see  it  in  the  sad  and 

somewhat  elongated  face,  as  though  he  had  pored 
over  big  books  too  much,  a  sort  of  air  of  pathos 
and  aloofness  from  things.  His  mouth  strikes  you 
as  being  rather  meager,  until  he  smiles,  which  is 
quite  often,  for,  glory  be,  he  has  a  good  sense  of 
humor.  But  besides  that  he  has  a  neatness,  a  cool- 
ness, an  impersonal  sort  of  ease,  which  would  make 
you  think  that  he  might  have  stepped  out  of  one  of 
Henry  James's  earlier  novels  of  about  the  time  of 
131 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

the  Portrait  of  a  Lady,  And  I  like  him.  1  knew 
that  at  once.  He's  effete  and  old-worldish  and 
probably  useless,  out  here,  but  he  stands  for  some- 
thing I've  been  missing,  and  I'll  be  greatly  mis- 
taken if  Percival  Benson  and  Chaddie  McKail  are 
not  pretty  good  friends  before  the  winter's  over! 
He's  asked  if  he  might  be  permitted  to  call,  and  he's 
coming  for  dinner  to-morrow  night,  and  I  do  hope 
Dinky-Dunk  is  nice  to  him — if  we're  to  be  neigh- 
bors. But  Dinky-Dunk  says  Westerners  don't  ask 
io  be  permitted  to  call.  They  just  stick  their  cay- 
use  into  the  corral  and  walk  in,  the  same  as  an 
Indian  does.  And  Dinky-Dunk  says  that  if  he 
comes  in  evening  dress  he'll  shoot  him,  sure  pop ! 


13d 


Thursday  the  Twenty-ninth 

Percy  (how  I  hate  that  name !)  was  here  for  din- 
ner last  night,  and  all  things  considered,  we  didn't 
fare  so  badly.  We  had  tomato  bisque  and  scal- 
loped potatoes  and  prairie-chicken  (they  need  to 
be  well  basted)  and  hot  biscuits  and  stewed  dried 
peaches  with  cream.  Then  we  had  coffee  and  the 
men  smoked  their  pipes.  We  talked  until  a  quarter 
to  one  in  the  morning,  and  my  poor  Dinky-Dunk, 
who  has  been  working  so  hard  and  seeing  nobody, 
really  enjoyed  that  visit  and  really  likes  Percival 
Benson. 

Percy  got  talking  about  Oxford,  and  you  could 
see  that  he  loved  the  old  town  and  that  he  felt  more 
at  home  on  the  Isis  than  on  the  prairie.  He  said 
he  once  heard  Freeman  tell  a  story  about  Goldwin 
Smith,  who  used  to  be  Regius  Professor  of  History 
at  the  University.  G.  S.  seemed  astonished  that  F. 
couldn't  tell  him,  at  some  viva  voce  exam,  whatever 
133 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

that  may  mean,  the  cause  of  King  John's  death. 
Then  G.  S.  explained  that  poor  John  died  of  too 
much  peaches  and  fresh  ale,  "which  would  give  a 
man  considerable  belly-ache,"  the  Regius  Professor 
of  History  solemnly  announced  to  Freeman. 

Percy  said  his  lungs  rather  troubled  him  in  Eng- 
land, and  he  has  spent  over  a  year  in  Florence  and 
Rome  and  can  talk  pictures  like  a  Grant  Allen 
guide-book.  And  he's  sat  through  many  an  opera 
at  La  Scala,  but  considered  the  Canadian  coyote 
a  much  better  vocalist  than  most  of  the  minor  Ital- 
ian tenors.  And  he  knows  Capri  and  Taormina  and 
says  he'd  like  to  grow  old  and  die  in  Sicily.  He 
got  pneumonia  at  Messina,  and  nearly  died  young 
there  and  after  five  months  in  Switzerland  a  special- 
ist told  him  to  try  Canada. 

I've  noticed  that  one  of  the  delusions  of  Ameri- 
cans is  that  an  Englishman  is  silent.  Now,  my 
personal  conviction  is  that  Englishmen  are  the 
greatest  talkers  in  the  world,  and  I  have  Percy  to 
back  me  up  in  it.  In  fact,  we  sat  about  talking  so 
long  that  Percy  asked  if  he  couldn't  stay  all  night, 
134 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

as  he  was  a  poor  rider  and  wasn't  sure  of  the  trails 
as  yet.  So  we  made  a  shake-down  for  him  in  the 
living-room.  And  when  Dinky-Dunk  came  to  bed 
he  confided  to  me  that  Percy  was  calmly  reading 
and  smoking  himself  to  sleep,  out  of  my  sadly 
scorned  copy  of  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  with 
the  lamp  on  the  floor,  on  one  side  of  him,  and  a 
saucer  on  the  other,  for  an  ash-tray.  But  he  was 
up  and  out  this  morning,  before  either  of  us  was 
stirring,  coming  back  to  Casa  Grande,  however, 
when  he  saw  the  smoke  at  the  chimney-top.  His 
thin  cheeks  were  quite  pink  and  he  apologetically 
explained  that  he'd  been  trying  for  an  hour  and  a 
half  to  catch  his  cayuse.  Olie  had  come  to  his  res- 
cue. But  our  thin-shouldered  Oxford  exile  sai(? 
that  he  had  never  seen  such  a  glorious  sunrise,  and 
that  the  ozone  had  made  him  a  bit  tipsy.  Speak- 
ing of  thin-shouldered  specimens,  Matilda  Anne,  I 
was  once  a  thirty-six ;  now  I  am  a  perfect  forty-two. 


135 


Friday  the  Fifth 

The  weather  has  been  bad  all  this  week,  but  I've 
had  3-  great  deal  of  sewing  to  do,  and  for  two  days 
Dinky-Dunk  stayed  in  and  helped  me  fix  up  the 
shack.  I  made  more  book-shelves  out  of  more  old 
biscuit-boxes  and  my  lord  made  a  gun-rack  for 
our  fire-arms.  Percival  Benson  rode  over  once^ 
through  the  storm,  and  it  took  us  half  an  hour  to 
thaw  him  out.  But  he  brought  some  books,  and 
says  he  has  four  cases,  altogether,  and  that  we're 
welcome  to  all  we  wish.  He  stayed  until  noon  the 
next  day,  this  time  sleeping  in  the  annex,  which 
Dinky-Dunk  and  I  have  papered,  so  that  it  looks 
quite  presentable.  But  as  yet  there  is  no  way  of 
heating  it.  Our  new  neighbor,  I  imagine,  is  very 
lonesome. 


136 


Sunday  the  Seventh 

The  weather  has  cleared :  there's  a  chinook  arch 
in  the  sky,  and  a  sort  of  St.  Martin's-Summer  haze 
on  all  the  prairie.  But  there's  news  to-day.  Kino, 
our  new  neighbor's  Jap,  has  decamped  with  a  good 
deal  of  money  and  about  all  of  Percival  Benson's 
valuables.  The  poor  boy  is  almost  helpless,  but 
he's  not  a  quitter.  He  said  he  chopped  his  first 
kindling  to-day,  though  he  had  to  stand  in  a  wash- 
tub,  while  he  did  it,  to  keep  from  cutting  his  feet. 
Dinky-Dunk's  birthday  is  only  three  weeks  oif ,  and 
I'm  making  plans  for  a  celebration. 


137 


Tuesday  the  Ninth 

The  days  slip  by,  and  scarcely  leave  me  time  to 
write.  Dinky-Dunk  is  a  sort  of  pendulum,  swing- 
ing out  to  work,  back  to  eat,  and  then  out,  and  then 
back  again.  Olie  is  teaming  in  lumber  and  galvan- 
ized iron  for  a  new  building  of  some  sort.  My 
lord,  in  the  evenings,  sits  with  paper  and  pencil, 
figuring  out  measurements  and  making  plans.  I 
sit  on  the  other  side  of  the  table,  as  a  rule,  sewing. 
Sometimes  I  go  around  to  his  side  of  the  table,  and 
make  him  put  his  plans  away  for  a  few  minutes. 
We  are  very  happy.  But  where  the  days  fly  to 
I  scarcely  know.  We  are  always  looking  toward  the 
future,  talking  about  the  future,  "conceiting"  for 
the  future,  as  the  Irish  say.  Next  summer  is  to  be 
our  banner  year.  Dinky-Dunk  is  going  to  risk 
everything  on  wheat.  He's  like  a  general  plotting 
out  a  future  plan  of  campaign — for  when  the  work 
comes,  he  says,  it  will  come  in  a  rush.  Help  will  bc 
138 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

hard  to  get,  so  he'll  sell  his  British  Columbia  tim- 
ber rights  and  buy  a  forty-horse-power  gasoline 
tractor.  He  will  at  least  if  gasoline  gets  cheaper, 
for  with  "gas"  still  at  twenty-six  cents  a  gallon 
horse-power  is  cheapest.  But  during  the  breaking 
season  in  April  and  May,  one  of  these  engines  can 
haul  eight  gang-plows  behind  it.  In  twenty-four 
hours  it  will  be  able  to  turn  over  thirty-five  acres 
of  prairie  soil — and  the  ordinary  man  and  team 
counts  two  acres  of  plowing  a  decent  day's  work. 

To-night  I  asked  Dinky-Dunk  why  he  risked 
everything  on  wheat  and  warned  him  that  we  might 
have  to  revise  the  old  Kansas  trekker's  slogan  to — 

"In  wheat  we  trusted. 
In  wheat  we  busted !" 

Dinky-Dunk  explained  that  to  keep  on  raising 
only  wheat  would  be  bad  for  the  land,  and  even 
now  meant  taking  a  chance,  but  situated  as  he  was 
it  brought  in  the  quickest  money.  And  he  wanted 
money  in  a  hurry,  for  he  had  a  nest  to  feather  for 
a  lady  wild-bird  that  he'd  captured — which  meant 
139 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

me.  Later  on  he  intends  to  go  in  for  flax — for  fiber 
and  not  for  seed — and  as  our  land  should  produce 
two  tons  of  the  finest  flax-straw  to  the  acre  and 
as  the  Belgian  and  Irish  product  is  now  worth  over 
four  hundred  dollars  a  ton,  he  told  me  to  sit  down 
and  figure  out  what  four  hundred  acres  would  pro- 
duce, with  even  a  two-third  crop. 

The  Canadian  farmer  of  the  West,  he  went  on 
to  explain,  mostly  grew  flax  for  the  seed  alone, 
burning  up  over  a  million  tons  of  straw  every  year, 
just  to  get  it  out  of  the  way,  the  same  as  he  does 
with  his  wheat-straw.  But  all  that  will  soon  be 
changed.  Only  last  week  Dinky-Dunk  wrote  to  the 
Department  of  Agriculture  for  information  about 
courtai  fiber — ^that's  the  kind  used  for  point-lace 
and  is  worth  a  dollar  a  pound — for  my  lord  feels 
convinced  his  soil  and  climatic  conditions  are  es- 
pecially suited  for  certain  of  the  finer  varieties. 
He  even  admitted  that  flax  would  be  better  on  his 
land  at  the  present  time,  as  it  would  release  certain 
of  the  natural  fertilizers  which  sometimes  leave  the 
virgin  soil  too  rich  for  wheat.  But  what  most 
140 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

impressea  me  about  Dinlcy-Dunk's  talk  was  his  ab- 
solute and  unshaken  faith  In  this  West  of  ours,  once 
it  wakes  up  to  Its  opportunities.  It's  a  stored-up 
granary  of  wealth,  he  declares,  and  all  we've  done 
so  far  is  to  nibble  along  the  leaks  in  the  floor- 
cracks  ! 


1^1 


Saturday  the  Twenty-first 

To-day  is  Dinky-Dunk's  birthday.  He's  always 
thought,  of  course,  that  I'm  a  pauper,  and  never 
dreamed  of  my  poor  httle  residuary  nest-egg.  I'd 
ordered  a  box  of  Okanagan  Valley  apples,  and  a 
gramophone  and  a  dozen  opera  records,  and  a  brier- 
wood  pipe  and  two  pounds  of  English  "Honey- 
Dew,"  and  a  smoking- jacket,  and  some  new  ties 
and  socks  and  shirts,  and  a  brand  new  Stetson,  for 
Dinky-Dunk's  old  hat  is  almost  a  rag-bag.  And  I 
ordered  half  a  dozen  of  the  newer  novels  and  a  set 
of  Herbert  Spencer  which  I  heard  him  say  he 
wanted,  and  a  sepia  print  of  the  Mona  Lisa  (which 
my  lord  says  I  look  like  when  I'm  planning  trou- 
ble!) and  a  felt  mattress  and  a  set  of  bed-springs 
(so  good-by,  old  sway-backed  friend  whose  humps 
have  bruised  me  in  body  and  spirit  this  many  a 
night!)  and  a  dozen  big  oranges  and  three  dozen 
little  candles  for  the  birthday  cake.  And  then  I 
14£ 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

was  cleaned  out — every  blessed  cent  gone!  But 
Percy  (we  have,  you  see,  been  unable  to  escape  that 
name)  ordered  a  box  of  cigars  and  a  pair  of  quilted 
house-slippers,  so  it  was  a  pretty  formidable  array. 

I,  accordingly,  had  Olie  secretly  team  this  array 
all  the  way  from  Buckhorn  to  Percy's  house,  where 
it  was  duly  ambushed  and  entrenched,  to  await  the 
fatal  day.  As  luck  would  have  it,  or  seemed  to  have 
it,  Dinky-Dunk  had  to  hit  the  trail  for  overnight, 
to  see  about  the  registration  of  his  transfers  for 

his  new  half-section,  at  the  town  of  H .     So  as 

soon  as  Dinky-Dunk  was  out  of  sight  I  hurried 
through  my  work  and  had  Tumble-Weed  and  Bronk 
headed  for  the  old  Titchborne  Ranch. 

There  I  arrived  about  mid-afternoon,  and  what 
a  time  we  had,  getting  those  things  unpacked,  and 
looking  them  over,  and  planning  and  talking !  But 
the  whole  thing  was  spoilt. 

We  forgot  to  tie  the  horses.     So  while  we  were 

having  tea  Bronk  and  Tumble-Weed  hit  the  trail, 

on  their  own  hook.     They  made  for  home,  harness 

and  all,  but  of  course  I  never  knew  this  at  the  time. 

143 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

We  looked  and  looked,  came  back  for  supper,  and 
then  started  out  again.  We  searched  until  it  got 
dark.  My  feet  were  like  lead,  and  I  couldn't  have 
walked  another  mile.  I  was  so  stiff  and  tired  I 
simply  had  to  give  up.  Percy  worried,  of  course, 
for  we  had  no  way  of  sending  word  to  Dinky-Dunk. 
Then  we  sat  down  and  talked  over  possibilities,  like 
a  couple  of  castaways  on  a  Robinson  Crusoe  island. 
Percy  offered  to  bunk  in  the  stable,  and  let  me  have 
the  shack.  But  I  wouldn't  hear  of  that.  In  the 
first  place,  I  felt  pretty  sure  Percy  was  what  they 
call  a  "lunger"  out  here,  and  I  didn't  relish  the  idea 
of  sleeping  in  a  tuberculous  bed.  I  asked  for  a 
blanket  and  told  him  that  I  was  going  to  sleep  out 
under  the  wagon,  as  I'd  often  done  with  Dinky- 
Dunk.  Percy  finally  consented,  but  this  worried 
him  too.  He  even  brought  out  his  "big-game"  gun, 
so  I'd  have  protection,  and  felt  the  grass  to  see  if 
it  was  damp,  and  declared  he  couldn't  sleep  on  a 
mattress  when  he  knew  I  was  out  on  the  hard 
ground.  I  told  him  that  I  loved  it,  and  to  go  to 
U4i 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

bed,  for  I  wanted  to  get  out  of  some  of  my  armor- 
plate.     He  went,  reluctantly. 

It  was  a  beautiful  night,  and  not  so  cold,  with 
scarcely  a  breath  of  wind  stirring.  I  lay  looking 
out  through  the  wheel-spokes  at  the  Milky  Way, 
and  was  just  dropping  off  when  Percy  came  out 
still  again.  He  was  in  a  quilted  dressing-gown 
and  had  a  blanket  over  his  shoulders.  It  made  him 
look  for  all  the  world  like  Father  Time.  He  wanted 
to  know  if  I  was  all  right,  and  had  brought  me  out 
a  pillow — which  I  didn't  use.  Then  he  sat  down  on 
the  prairie-floor,  near  the  wagon,  and  smoked  and 
talked.  He  pointed  out  some  of  the  constellations 
to  me,  and  said  the  only  time  he'd  ever  seen  the 
stars  bigger  was  one  still  night  on  the  Indian  Ocean, 
when  he  was  on  his  way  back  from  Singapore.  He 
would  never  forget  that  night,  he  said,  the  stars 
were  so  wonderful,  so  big,  so  close,  so  soft  and  lumi- 
nous. But  the  northern  stars  were  different.  They 
were  without  the  orange  tone  that  belongs  to  the 
South.  They  seemed  remoter  and  more  awe-in- 
145 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

spiring,  and  there  was  always  a  green  tone  to  their 
whiteness. 

Then  we  got  talking  about  "furrin  parts"  and 
Percy  asked  me  if  I'd  ever  seen  Naples  at  night 
from  San  Martino,  and  I  asked  him  if  he'd  ever 
seen  Broadway  at  night  from  the  top  of  the  Times 
Building.  Then  he  asked  me  if  I'd  ever  watched 
Paris  from  Montmartre,  or  seen  the  Temple  of 
Neptune  at  Paestum  bathed  in  Lucanian  moonlight 
— which  I  very  promptly  told  him  I  had,  for  it  was 
on  the  ride  home  from  Paestum  that  a  certain  per- 
son had  proposed  to  me.  We  talked  about  temples 
and  Greek  Gods  and  the  age  of  the  world  and  In- 
dian legends  until  I  got  downright  sleepy.  Then 
Percy  threw  away  his  last  cigarette  and  got  up. 
He  said  "Good  night;"  I  said  "Good  night;"  and 
he  went  into  the  shack.  He  said  he'd  leave  the  door 
open,  in  case  I  called.  There  were  just  the  two 
of  us,  between  earth  and  sky,  that  night,  and  not 
another  soul  within  a  radius  of  seven  miles  of  any 
side  of  us.  He  was  very  glad  to  have  some  one  to 
talk  to.  He's  probably  a  year  or  two  older  than 
146 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

I  am,  but  I  am  quite  motherly  with  him.  And  he  is 
shockingly  incomp«etent,  as  a  homesteader,  from  the 
look  of  his  shack.  But  he's  a  gentleman,  almost  too 
^'Gentle,'*  I  sometimes  feel,  a  Laodicean,  mentally 
over-refined  until  it  leaves  him  unable  to  cope  with 
real  life.  He's  one  of  those  men  made  for  being  a 
"spectator,"  and  not  an  actor,  in  life.  And  there's 
something  so  absurd  about  his  being  where  he  is 
that  I  feel  sorry  for  him. 

I  slept  like  a  log.  Once  I  fell  asleep,  I  forgot 
about  the  hard  ground,  and  the  smell  of  the  horse- 
blankets,  and  the  fact  that  I'd  lost  my  poor  Dinky- 
Dunk's  team.  When  I  woke  up  it  was  the  first  gray 
of  dawn.  Two  men  were  standing  side  by  side, 
looking  at  me  under  the  wagon.  One  was  Percy, 
and  the  other  was  Dinky-Dunk  himself. 

He'd  got  home  by  three  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
by  hurrying,  for  he  was  nervous  about  me  being 
alone.  But  he  found  the  house  empty,  the  team 
standing  beside  the  corral,  and  me  missing.  Nat- 
urally, it  wasn't  a  very  happy  situation.  Poor 
Dinky-Dunk  hit  the  trail  at  once,  and  had  been 
147 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

riding  all  night  looking  for  his  lost  wife.  Then 
he  made  for  Percy's,  woke  him  up,  and  discovered 
her  placidly  snoring  under  a  wagon-box.  He  didn't 
even  smile  at  this.  He  was  very  tired  and  very 
silent.  I  thought,  for  a  moment,  that  I  saw  dis- 
trust on  Dinky-Dunk's  face,  for  the  first  time. 
But  he  has  said  nothing.  I  hated  to  see  him  go  out 
to  work,  when  we  got  home,  but  he  refused  to  take 
a  nap  at  noon,  as  I  wanted  him  to.  So  to-night, 
when  he  came  in  for  his  supper,  I  had  the  birth- 
day cake  duly  decked  and  the  presents  all  out. 

But  his  enthusiasm  was  forced,  and  all  during  the 
meal  he  showed  a  tendency  to  be  absent-minded.  I 
had  no  explanations  to  make,  so  I  made  none.  But 
I  noticed  that  he  put  on  his  old  slippers.  I  thought 
he  had  done  it  deliberately. 

"You  don^t  seem  to  mellow  with  age,"  I  an- 
nounced, with  my  eyebrows  up.  He  flushed  at  that, 
quite  plainly.  Then  he  reached  over  and  took  hold 
of  my  hand.  But  he  did  it  only  with  an  effort,  and 
after  some  tremendous  inward  struggle  which  was 
not  altogether  flattering  to  me. 
148 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

"Please  take  your  hand  away  so  I  can  reach  the 
dish-towel,"  I  told  him.  And  the  hand  went  away 
like  a  shot.  After  I'd  finished  my  work  I  got  out 
my  George  Meredith  and  read  Modern  Love, 
Dinky-Dunk  did  not  come  to  bed  until  late.  I  was 
awake  when  he  came,  but  I  didn't  let  him  know  it. 


149 


^Sunday  the  Twenty-ninth 

I  haven't  felt  much  like  writing  this  last  week. 
I  scarcely  know  why.  I  think  it's  because  Dinky- 
Dunk  is  on  his  dignity.  He's  getting  thin,  by  the 
way.  His  cheek-bones  show  and  his  Adam's  apple 
sticks  out.  He's  worried  about  his  land  payments, 
and  I  tell  him  he'd  be  happier  with  a  half -section. 
But  Dinky-Dunk  wants  wealth.  And  I  can't  help 
him  much.  I'm  afraid  I'm  an  encumbrance.  And 
the  stars  make  me  lonely,  and  the  prairie  wind  some- 
times gives  me  the  willies !    And  winter  is  coming. 

I'm  afraid  I'm  out  of  my  setting,  as  badly  out 
of  it  as  Percival  Benson  is.  It  wouldn't  be  so  bad, 
I  suppose,  if  I'd  never  seen  such  lovely  corners  of 
the  world,  before  coming  out  here  to  be  a  dot  on 
the  wilderness.  If  I'd  never  had  that  heavenly  sum- 
mer at  Fiesole,  and  those  months  with  you  at  Corfu, 
and  that  winter  in  Rome  with  poor  dear  dead  Ka- 
trinka !  Sometimes  I  think  of  the  nights  we  used  to 
150 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

look  out  over  Paris,  from  the  roof  above  'Tite  Dan- 
eau's  studio.  And  sometimes  I  think  of  the  Pincio, 
with  the  band  playing,  and  the  carriages  flashing, 
and  the  officers  in  uniform,  and  the  milky  white 
statues  among  the  trees,  and  the  golden  mists  of 
the  late  afternoon  over  the  Immortal  City.  And 
I  tell  myself  that  it  was  all  a  dream.  And  then 
I  feel  that  /  am  all  a  dream,  and  the  prairie  is  a 
dream,  and  Paddy  and  Olie  and  Dinky-Dunk  and 
all  this  new  life  is  nothing  more  than  a  dream.  Oh, 
Matilda  Anne,  I've  been  homesick  this  week,  so  un- 
happy and  homesick  for  something — for  something, 
and  I  don't  even  know  what  it  is  I 


181 


Monday  the  Seventh 

Glory  beI  Winter's  here  with  a  double-edged 
saber  wind  out  of  the  north  and  snow  on  the  ground. 
It  gives  a  zip  to  things.  It  makes  our  snug  Httle 
shack  seem  as  cozy  as  a  ship's  cabin.  And  I've  got 
a  jumper-sleigh,  and  with  my  coon-skin  coat  and 
gauntlets  and  wedge-cap  I  can  be  as  warm  as  toast 
in  any  wind.  And  there's  so  much  to  do.  And  I'm 
not  going  to  be  a  piker.  This  is  the  land  where 
folks  make  good  or  go  loco.  You've  only  got  your- 
self to  depend  on,  and  yourself  to  blame,  if  things 
go  wrong.  And  I'm  going  to  make  them  go  right. 
There's  no  use  wailing  out  here  in  the  West.  A 
line  or  two  of  Laurence  Hope's  has  been  running 
all  day  through  my  head : 

*'These  are  my  people,  and  this  my  land ; 

I  hear  the  pulse  of  her  secret  soul. 
This  is  the  life  that  I  understand, 

Savage  and  simple,  and  sane  and  whole." 

152 


Friday  the  Eleventh 

Dinky-Dunk  came  home  with  an  Indian  girl  to- 
day, a  young  half-breed  about  sixteen  years  old. 
She's  to  be  both  companion  and  parlor-maid,  for 
Dinky-Dunk  has  to  hurry  off  to  British  Columbia, 
to  try  to  sell  his  timber-rights  there  to  meet  his 
land  payments.  He's  off  to-morrow.  It  makes  me 
feel  wretched,  but  I'm  consuming  my  own  smoke, 
for  I  don't  want  him  to  think  me  an  encumbrance. 
My  Indian  girl  speaks  a  little  English.  She  also 
eats  sugar  by  the  handful,  whenever  she  can  steal 
it.  I  asked  her  what  her  name  was  and  she  told  me 
"Queenie  MacKenzie."  That  name  almost  took  my 
breath  away.  How  that  untutored  Northwest  abo- 
rigine ever  took  unto  herself  this  Broadway  chorus- 
girl  name.  Heaven  only  knows!  But  I  have  my 
suspicions  of  Queenie.  She  has  certain  exploratory 
movements  which  convince  me  she  is  verminous. 
She  sleeps  in  the  annex,  I'm  happy  to  say. 

15a 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

At  dinner  to-night  when  I  was  teaching  Dinky- 
Dunk  how  to  make  a  rabbit  out  of  his  table-napkin 
and  a  sea-sick  passenger  out  of  the  last  of  his 
oranges,  he  explained  that  he  might  not  get  back 
in  time  for  Christmas,  and  asked  if  I'd  mind.  I 
knew  his  trip  was  important,  so  I  kept  a  stiff  upper 
lip  and  said  of  course  I  wouldn't  mind.  But  the 
thought  of  a  Christmas  alone  chilled  my  heart.  I 
tried  to  be  jolly,  and  gave  my  repertory  on  the 
mouth-organ,  which  promptly  stopped  all  activities 
on  the  part  of  the  round-eyed  Queenie  MacKenzie. 
But  all  that  foolery  was  as  forced  as  the  frivolity 
of  the  French  Revolution  Conciergerie  where  the 
merry  diners  couldn't  quite  forget  they  were  going- 
to  lose  their  heads  in  the  morning  1 


IBC 


Sunday  the  Thirteenth 

Not  only  is  Duncan  gone,  but  Queenie  has  also 
jquite  unceremoniously  taken  her  departure.  It 
arose  from  the  fact  that  I  requested  her  to  take  a 
bath.  The  only  disappointed  member  of  the  family 
is  poor  old  Olie,  who  was  actually  making  sheep's 
eyes  at  that  verminous  little  baggage.  Imagination 
falters  at  what  he  might  have  done  with  a  dollar's, 
worth  of  brown  sugar.  When  Queenie  went,  I  find, 
my  mouth-organ  went  with  her.  I'd  like  to  ling 
chih  that  Indian  girl ! 


15«^ 


Wednesday  the  SiocteentJi 

It  was  a  sparkling  clear  day  to-day,  with  no 
wind,  so  I  rode  over  to  the  old  Titchbome  Ranch 
with  my  little  jumper-sleigh.  There  I  found  Per- 
cival  Benson  in  a  most  pitiable  condition.  He  had 
been  laid  up  with  the  grip.  His  place  was  untidy, 
his  dishes  were  unwashed,  and  his  fuel  was  run- 
ning short.  His  appearance,  in  fact,  rather  fright- 
ened me.  So  I  bundled  him  up  and  got  him  in  the 
jumper  and  brought  him  straight  home  with  me. 
He  had  a  chill  on  the  way,  so  as  soon  as  we  got 
to  Casa  Grande  I  sent  him  to  bed,  gave  him  hot 
whisky,  and  put  my  hot  water  bottle  at  his  feet. 
He  tried  to  accept  the  whole  thing  as  a  joke,  and 
vowed  I  was  jolly  well  cooking  him.  But  to-night 
he  has  a  high  fever  and  I'm  afraid  he's  in  for  a 
serious  siege  of  illness.  I  intend  to  send  Olie  over 
to  get  some  of  his  things  and  have  his  live  stock 
brought  over  with  ours. 

156 


Sunday  the  Twentieth 

Percy  has  had  three  very  bad  nights,  but  seems 
a  little  better  to-day.  His  lung  is  congested,  and  it 
may  be  pneumonia,  but  I  think  my  mustard-plaster 
saved  the  day.  He  tries  so  hard  to  be  cheerful,  and 
is  so  grateful  for  every  little  thing.  But  I  wish 
Dinky-Dunk  was  here  to  tell  me  what  to  do. 

I  could  never  have  survived  this  last  week  without 
Olie.  He  is  as  watchful  and  ready  as  a  farm- 
collie.  But  I  want  my  Dinky-Dunk !  I  may  have 
spoiled  my  Dinky-Dunk  a  little,  but  it's  only  once 
every  century  or  two  that  God  makes  a  man  like 
him.  I  want  to  be  a  good  wife.  I  want  to  do  my 
share,  and  keep  a  shoulder  to  the  wheel,  if  the 
going's  got  to  be  heavy  for  the  next  year  or  two. 
I  won't  be  the  Dixon  type.  I  won't — ^I  won't !  My 
Duncan  will  need  me  during  this  next  year,  and  it 
will  be  a  joy  to  help  him.  For  I  love  that  man,  Ma- 
tilda Anne, — ^I  love  him  so  much  that  it  hurts ! 
167 


Sunday  the  Twenty-seventh 

Christmas  has  come  and  gone.  It  was  very 
lonely  at  Casa  Grande.  I  prefer  not  writing  about 
it.  Percy  is  improving,  but  is  still  rather  weak.  I 
think  he  had  a  narrow  squeako 


15S 


Wednesday  the  Thirtieth 

My  patient  is  up  and  about,  looking  like  a  dif- 
ferent man.  He  shows  the  effects  of  my  forced 
feeding,  though  he  declares  I'm  trying  to  make 
him  into  a  Strasburg  goose,  for  the  sake  of  the 
pate  de  foies  gras  when  I  cut  him  up.  But  he's  de- 
cided to  go  to  Santa  Barbara  for  the  winter:  and 
I  think  he's  wise.  So  this  afternoon  I  togged  out  in 
my  furs,  took  the  jumper,  and  went  kiting  over  to 
the  Titchbome  Ranch.  Oh,  what  a  shack!  What 
disorder,  what  untidiness,  what  spirit-numbing  des- 
olation! I  don't  blame  poor  Percival  Benson  for 
clearing  out  for  California.  I  got  what  things  he 
needed,  however,  and  went  kiting  home  again. 


159 


'Thursday  the  Thirty-first 

I  HARDLY  know  how  to  begin.  But  it  must  be 
written  or  I'll  suddenly  go  mad  and  start  to  bite 
the  shack  walls.  Last  night,  after  Percy  had 
helped  me  turn  the  bread-mixer  (for,  whatever  hap- 
pens, we've  at  least  got  to  eat)  I  helped  him  pack. 
Among  other  things,  he  found  a  copy  of  Housman's 
Shropshire  Lad  and  after  running  through  it  an- 
nounced that  he'd  like  to  read  me  two  or  three  little 
things  out  of  it.  So  I  squatted  down  in  front  of  the 
fire,  idly  poking  at  the  red  coals,  and  he  sat  beside 
the  stove  with  his  book,  in  slippers  and  dressing 
gown.  And  there  he  was  solemnly  reading  out  loud 
when  the  door  opened  and  in  walked  Dinky-Dunk. 

I  say  he  walked  in,  but  that  isn't  quite  right.  He 
stood  in  the  open  door,  staring  at  us,  with  an  ex- 
pression that  would  have  done  credit  to  the  Tragic 
Muse.  I  imagine  Enoch  Arden  wore  much  the  same 
look  when  he  piped  the  home  circle  after  that  pro- 
160 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

longed  absence  of  his.  Then  Dinky-Dunk  did  a 
most  unpardonable  thing.  Instead  of  saying 
"Howdy!"  like  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman,  he 
backed  out  of  the  shack  and  slammed  the  door. 
When  I'd  caught  my  breath  I  went  out  through 
that  door  after  him.  It  was  a  bitterly  cold  night, 
but  I  did  not  stop  to  put  anything  on.  I  was  too 
amazed,  too  indignant,  too  swept  off  my  feet  by 
the  absurdity  of  it  all.  I  could  see  Dinky-Dunk  in 
the  clear  starlight,  taking  the  blankets  off  his  team. 
He'd  hurried  to  the  shack,  without  even  unharness- 
ing the  horses.  I  could  hear  the  wheel-tires  whine 
on  the  crisp  snow,  for  the  poor  beasts  were  tired 
and  restless.  I  went  straight  to  the  buckboard  into 
which  Dinky-Dunk  was  climbing.  He  looked  like 
a  cinnamon-bear  in  his  big  shaggy  coat.  And  I 
couldn't  see  his  face.  But  I  remembered  how  it  had 
looked  in  the  doorway.  It  was  the  color  of  a  tan 
shoe.  It  was  too  weather-beaten  and  burnt  with 
the  wind  and  sun-glare  ever  to  turn  white,  or,  I  sup- 
pose, it  would  have  been  the  color  of  paper. 

"Haven't  you,"  I  demanded,  "haven't  you  any 
161 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

explanation  for  acting  like  this?"  He  sat  in  the 
buckboard  seat,  with  the  reins  in  his  hands. 

''I  guess  I've  got  the  first  right  to  that  ques- 
tion," he  finally  said  in  a  stifled  voice. 

"Then  why  don't  you  ask  it?"  was  my  answer 
to  him.  Again  he  waited  a  moment  before  speak- 
ing, as  though  he  felt  the  need  of  weighing  his 
words. 

"I  don't  need  to — now !"  he  said,  as  he  tightened 
the  reins. 

"Wait,"  I  called  out  to  him.  "There  are  certain 
things  I  want  you  to  know !" 

I  was  not  going  to  make  explanations.  I  would 
not  dignify  his  brute-man  stupidity  by  such  things. 
I  scarcely  know  what  I  intended  to  do.  As  I  looked 
up  at  him  there  in  his  rough  fur  coat,  for  a  moment, 
he  seemed  millions  and  millions  of  miles  away  from 
me.  I  stared  at  him,  trying  to  comprehend  his  utter 
lack  of  comprehension.  I  seemed  to  view  him  across 
the  same  gulf  which  separates  a  meditative  zoo  vis- 
itor from  some  abysmally  hirsute  animal  that  eons 
and  eons  ago  must  have  been  its  cave-fellow  and 
162 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

hearth-mate.  But  now  we  seemed  to  have  nothing 
in  common,  not  even  a  language  with  which  to  link 
up  those  lost  ages.  Yet  from  all  that  mixture  of 
feelings  only  one  survived:  I  didn't  want  mj  hus- 
band to  go. 

It  was  the  team,  as  far  as  I  can  remember,  that 
really  decided  the  thing.  They  had  been  restive, 
backing  and  jerking  and  pawing  and  nickering  for 
their  feed-box.  And  suddenly  they  jumped  for- 
ward. But  this  time  they  kept  going.  Whether 
Dinky-Dunk  tried  to  hold  them  back  or  not  I  can't 
say.  But  I  came  back  to  the  shack,  shivering. 
Percy,  thank  Heaven,  was  in  his  room. 

"I  think  I'll  turn  in !"  he  called  out,  quite  casual- 
ly, through  the  partition. 

I  said  "All  right,"  and  sat  down  in  front  of  the 
fire,  trying  to  straighten  things  out.  My  Dinky- 
Dunk  was  gone !  He  had  glared  at  me,  with  hate 
in  his  eyes,  as  he  sat  in  that  buckboard.  It's  all 
over.    He  has  no  faith  in  me,  his  own  wife ! 

I  went  to  bed  and  tried  to  sleep.  But  sleep  was 
out  of  the  question.  The  whole  thing  seemed  sa 
163 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

absurd,  so  unreasonable,  so  unjust.  I  could  feel 
waves  of  anger  sweep  through  my  body  at  the  mere 
thought  of  it.  Then  a  wave  of  something  else,  of 
something  between  anxiety  and  terror,  would  take 
the  place  of  anger.  My  husband  was  gone,  and 
he'd  never  come  back.  I'd  put  all  my  eggs  in  one 
basket,  and  the  basket  had  gone  over,  and  made  a 
saiFron-tinted  omelet  of  all  my  life. 

And  that's  the  way  I  watched  the  New  Year  in. 
I  couldn't  even  afford  the  luxury  of  a  little  bawl,  for 
I  was  afraid  Percy  would  hear  me.  It  must  have 
been  almost  morning  when  I  fell  asleep. 

When  I  woke  up  Percival  Benson  was  gone,  bag 
and  baggage.  At  first  I  resented  the  thought  of 
his  going  off  that  way,  without  a  word,  but  on 
thinking  it  over  I  decided  he'd  done  the  right  thing. 
There's  nothing  like  the  hard  cold  light  of  a  winter 
morning  to  bring  you  back  to  hard  cold  facts. 
Olie  had  driven  Percy  in  to  the  station.  So  I  was 
alone  in  the  shack  all  day.  I  did  a  heap  of  thinking 
during  those  long  hours  of  solitude.  And  out  of  all 
that  straw  of  self-examination  I  threshed  just  one 
164 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

)Crttle  grain  of  truth.  /  could  never  live  on  the 
prairie  alone.  And  whatever  I  did,  or  wherever  I 
went,  I  could  never  be  happy  without  my  Dinky- 
Dunk.    .    .    . 

I  had  just  finished  supper  to-night,  as  blue  as 
indigo  and  as  spiritless  as  a  wet  hen,  when  I  heard 
the  sound  of  voices.  It  took  me  only  ten  seconds 
to  make  sure  whose  they  were.  Dinky-Dunk  had 
come  back  with  Olie!  I  made  a  high  dive  for  a 
book  from  the  nearest  shelf,  swung  the  armchair 
about  with  a  jerk,  and  sank  luxuriously  into  it, 
with  my  feet  up  on  the  warm  damper  and  my  eyes 
leisurely  and  contentedly  perusing  George  Moore's 
Confessions  of  a  Young  Man  (although  I  hate 
the  libidinous  stuff  like  poison!)  Then  Dinky- 
Dunk  came  in.  I  could  see  him  stare  at  me  a  little 
awkwardly  and  contritely  (what  woman  can't  read 
a  book  and  study  a  man  at  the  same  time?)  and  I 
could  see  that  he  was  waiting  for  an  opening.  But 
I  gave  him  none.  Naturally,  Olie  had  explained 
everything  to  him.  But  I  had  been  humiliated,  my 
pride  had  been  walked  over,  from  end  to  end.  My 
165 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

spirit  had  been  stamped  on — and  I  had  decided  on 
my  plan  of  action.     I  simply  ignored  Duncan. 

I  read  for  a  while,  then  I  took  a  lamp,  went  to 
my  room,  and  deliberately  locked  the  door.  My  one 
regret  was  that  I  couldn't  see  Dinky-Dunk's  face 
when  that  key  turned.  And  now  I  must  stop  writ- 
ing, and  go  to  bed,  for  I  am  dog-tired.  I  know  I'll 
sleep  better  to-night.  It's  nice  to  remember  there's 
a  man  near,  if  he  happens  to  be  the  man  you  care 
a  trifle  about,  even  though  you  have  calmly  turned 
the  door-key  on  him. 


166 


Sunday  the  Third 

Dinky-Dunk  has  at  least  the  sensibilities  to  re- 
spect my  privacy  of  life.  He  knows  where  the  dead- 
line is,  and  doesn't  disregard  it.  But  it's  terribly 
hard  to  be  tragic  in  a  two-by-four  shack.  You  miss 
the  dignifying  touches.  And  you  haven't  much  lee- 
way for  the  bulky  swings  of  grandeur. 

For  one  whole  day  I  didn't  speak  to  Dinky-Dunk, 
didn't  even  so  much  as  recognize  his  existence.  I 
ate  by  myself,  and  did  my  work — ^when  the  mon- 
ster was  around — ^with  all  the  preoccupation  of  a 
sleep-walker.  But  something  happened,  and  I  for- 
got myself.  Before  I  knew  it  I  was  asking  him  8, 
question.  He  answered  it,  quite  soberly,  quite  cas- 
ually. If  he  had  grinned,  or  shown  one  jot  of  tri- 
umph, I  would  have  walked  out  of  the  shack  and 
never  spoken  to  him  again.  I  think  he  knew  he 
was  on  terribly  perilous  ground.  He  picked  his 
way  with  care.  He  asked  me  a  question  back,  quite 
167 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

offhandedly,  and  for  the  time  being  let  the  matter 
rest  there.  But  the  breach  was  in  my  walls,  Ma- 
tilda Anne,  and  I  was  quite  defenseless.  We  were 
both  very  impersonal  and  very  polite,  when  he 
came  in  at  supper  time,  though  I  think  I  turned 
a  visible  pink  when  I  sat  down  at  the  table,  for 
our  eyes  met  there,  just  a  moment  and  no  more. 
I  knew  he  was  watching  me,  covertly,  all  the  time. 
And  I  knew  I  was  making  him  pretty  miserable. 
But  I  wasn't  the  least  bit  ashamed  of  it. 

After  supper  he  indifferently  announced  that  he 
had  nothing  to  do  and  might  as  well  help  me  wash 
up.  I  went  to  hand  him  a  dish-towel.  Instead  of 
taking  the  towel  he  took  my  hand,  with  the  verjr 
profane  ejaculation,  as  he  did  so,  of  "Oh,  hell, 
Gee-Gee,  what's  the  use  ?" 

Then  before  I  knew  it,  he  had  me  in  his  arms 
(our  butter-dish  was  broken  in  the  collision)  and  I 
was  weak  enough  to  feel  sorry  for  him  and  his  poor 
tragic  pleading  eyes.  Then  I  gave  up.  If  I  was 
silly  enough  to  have  a  little  cry  on  his  shoulder,  I 
168 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

had  the  satisfaction  of  feeling  him  give  a  gulp  or 
two  himself. 

"You're  the  most  wonderful  woman  in  the 
world !"  he  solemnly  told  me,  and  then  in  a  much  less 
solemn  way  he  began  kissing  me  again.  But  the 
barriers  were  down.  And  how  we  talked  that  night ! 
And  how  different  everything  seemed!  And  how 
nice  it  was  to  feel  his  arm  over  my  shoulder  and 
his  quiet  breathing  on  the  nape  of  my  neck  as  I 
fell  asleep.  It  seemed  as  though  Love  were  fanning 
me  with  its  softest  wings.  I'm  happy  again.  But 
I've  been  wondering  if  it's  environment  that  makes 
character,  or  character  that  makes  environment. 
Sometimes  I  think  it's  one  way,  and  sometimes  I 
feel  it's  the  other.  But  I  can't  be  sure  of  my 
answer — yet !  It's  hard  for  a  spoiled  woman  to  re- 
member that  her  life  has  to  be  merged  into  some- 
body else's  life.  I've  been  wondering  if  marriage 
isn't  like  a  two-panel  screen,  which  won't  stand  up  if 
both  its  panels  are  too  much  in  line.  Heaven  knows, 
I  want  harmony !  But  a  woman  likes  to  feel  that 
169 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

instead  of  being  out  of  step  with  her  whole  regi- 
ment of  life  it's  the  regiment  that's  out  of  step 
with  her.  To-night  I  unlaced  Dinky-Dunk's  shoes, 
and  put  on  his  slippers,  and  sat  on  the  floor  be- 
tween his  knees  with  my  head  against  the  steady 
tich-toc'k  of  his  watch-pocket.  "Dinky-Dunk,"  I 
solemnly  announced,  "that  gink  called  Pope  was  a 
poor  guesser.  The  proper  study  of  man  should 
}iave  been  womanr' 


170 


Thursday  the  Seventh 

Everything  at  Casa  Grande  has  settled  back 
mto  the  usual  groove.  There  is  a  great  deal  to  do 
about  the  shack.  The  grimmest  bug-bear  of  do- 
mestic work  is  dish-washing.  A  pile  of  greasy  plates 
is  the  one  thing  that  gets  on  my  nerves.  And  it 
is  a  little  Waterloo  that  must  be  faced  three  times 
every  day,  of  every  week,  of  every  month,  of  every 
year.  And  I  was  never  properly  "broke"  for  do- 
mesticity and  the  dish-pan !  Why  can't  some  genius 
invent  a  self -washing  fry-pan.f^  My  hair  is  grow- 
ing so  long  that  I  can  now  do  it  up  in  a  sort 
of  half-hearted  French  roll.  It  has  been  quite 
cold,  with  a  wonderful  fall  of  snow.  The  sleighing 
could  not  be  better. 


171 


Saturday  the  Ninth 

Dinky-Dunk's  Christmas  present  came  to-day, 
over  two  weeks  late.  He  had  never  mentioned  it, 
and  I  had  not  only  held  my  peace,  but  had  given 
up  all  thought  of  getting  a  really-truly  gift  from 
my  lord  and  master. 

They  brought  it  out  from  Buckhorn,  in  the  bob- 
sleigh, all  wrapped  up  in  old  buffalo-robes  and 
blankets  and  tarpaulins.  Ifs  a  baby-grand  piano, 
and  a  beauty,  and  it  came  all  the  way  from  Winni- 
peg. But  either  the  shipping  or  the  knocking  about 
or  the  extreme  cold  has  put  it  terribly  out  of  tune, 
and  it  can't  be  used  until  the  piano-tuner  travels  a 
couple  of  hundred  miles  out  here  to  put  it  in  shape. 
And  it's  far  too  big  for  the  shack,  even  when  pushed 
right  up  into  the  corner.  But  Dinky-Dunk  says 
that  before  next  winter  there'll  be  a  different  sort 
of  house  on  this  spot  where  Casa  Grande  now 
stands. 

172 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

"And  that's  to  keep  your  soul  alive,  in  the  mean- 
time," he  announced.  I  scolded  him  for  being  so 
extravagant,  when  he  needed  every  dollar  he  could 
lay  his  hands  on.  But  he  wouldn't  listen  to  me. 
In  fact,  it  only  started  an  outburst. 

"My  God,  Gee-Gee,"  he  cried,  "haven't  you 
given  up  enough  for  me?  Haven't  you  sacrificed 
enough  in  coming  out  here  to  the  end  of  nowhere 
and  leaving  behind  everything  that  made  life  de- 
cent?" 

"Why,  Honey  Chile,  didn't  I  get  youV  I  de- 
manded.    But  even  that  didn't  stop  him. 

"Don't  you  suppose  I  ever  think  what  it's  meant 
to  you,  to  a  woman  like  you?  There  are  certain 
things  we  can't  have,  but  there  are  some  things 
we're  going  to  have.  This  next  ten  or  twelve 
months  will  be  hard,  but  after  that  there's  going  to 
be  a  change — if  the  Lord's  with  me,  and  I  have  a 
white  man's  luck!" 

"And  supposing  we  have  bad  luck  ?"  I  asked  him. 
He  was  silent  for  a  moment  or  two. 
173 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

**We  can  always  give  up,  and  go  back  to  the 
city,"  he  finally  said. 

"Give  up !"  I  said  with  a  whoop.  "Give  up?  Not 
on  your  life.  Mister  Dour  Man !  We're  not  going 
to  be  Dixonites !  We're  going  to  win  out !"  And  we 
were  together  in  a  death-clinch,  hugging  the  breath 
out  of  each  other,  when  Olie  came  in  to  ask  if  he 
hadn't  better  get  the  stock  stabled,  as  there  was  bad 
weather  coming. 


174 


Monday  the  Eleventh 

We  are  having  the  first  real  blizzard  of  the  win- 
ter. It  began  yesterday,  as  Olie  intimated,  and  for 
all  the  tail-end  of  the  day  my  Dinky-Dunk  was  on 
the  go,  in  the  bitter  cold,  looking  after  fuel  and 
feed  and  getting  things  ship-shape,  for  all  the 
world  like  a  skipper  who's  read  his  barometer  and 
seen  a  hurricane  coming.  There  had  been  no  wind 
for  a  couple  of  days,  only  dull  and  heavy  skies  with 
a  disturbing  sense  of  quietness.  Even  when  I  heard 
Olie  and  Dinky-Dunk  shouting  outside,  and  shoring 
up  the  shack-walls  with  poles,  I  could  not  quite 
make  out  what  it  meant. 

Then  the  blizzard  came.  It  came  down  out  of 
the  northwest,  like  a  cloudburst.  It  hummed  and 
sang,  and  then  it  whined,  and  then  it  screamed, 
screamed  in  a  high  falsetto  that  made  you  think 
poor  old  Mother  Earth  was  in  her  last  throes !  The 
snow  was  fine  and  hard,  really  minute  particles  of 
175 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

ice,  and  not  snow  at  all,  as  we  know  it  in  the  East, 
little  sharp-angled  diamond-points  that  stung  the 
skin  like  fire.  It  came  in  almost  horizontal  lines, 
driving  flat  across  the  unbroken  prairie  and  defy- 
ing anything  made  of  God  or  man  to  stop  it.  Noth- 
ing did  stop  it.  Our  shack  and  the  bunk-house  and 
stables  and  hay-stacks  tore  a  few  pin-feathers  off 
its  breast,  though ;  and  those  few  feathers  are  drifts 
higher  than  my  head,  heaped  up  against  each  and 
all  of  the  buildings. 

I  scratched  the  frost  off  a  window-pane,  where 
feathery  little  drifts  were  seeping  in  through  the 
sill-cracks,  when  it  first  began.  But  the  wind  blew 
harder  and  harder  and  the  shack  rocked  and  shook 
with  the  tension.  Oh,  such  a  wind!  It  made  a 
whining  and  wailing  noise,  with  each  note  higher, 
and  when  you  felt  that  it  couldn't  possibly  increase, 
that  it  simply  must  ease  off,  or  the  whole  world 
would  go  smash,  why,  that  whining  note  merely 
grew  tenser  and  the  wind  grew  stronger.  How  it 
lashed  things!  How  it  shook  and  flailed  and 
trampled  this  poor  old  earth  of  ours !  Just  before 
176 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

supper  Olie  announced  that  he'd  look  after  my 
chicks  for  me.  I  told  him,  quite  casually,  that  I'd 
attend  to  them  myself.  I  usually  strew  a  mixture 
of  wheat  and  oats  on  the  litter  in  the  hen-house 
overnight.  This  had  two  advantages,  one  was 
that  it  didn't  take  me  out  quite  so  early  in  the 
morning,  and  the  other  was  that  the  chicks  them- 
selves started  scratching  around  first  thing  in  the 
morning  and  so  got  exercise  and  kept  themselves 
warmer-bodied  and  in  better  health. 

It  was  not  essential  that  I  should  go  to  the  hen- 
house myself,  but  I  was  possessed  with  a  sudden 
desire  to  face  that  singing  white  tornado.  So  I  put 
on  my  things,  while  Dinky-Dunk  was  at  work  in 
the  stables.  I  put  on  furs  and  leggings  and  gaunt- 
lets and  all,  as  though  I  were  starting  for  a  ninety- 
mile  drive,  and  slipped  out.  Dinky-Dunk  had  tun- 
neled through  the  drift  in  front  of  the  door,  but 
that  tunnel  was  already  beginning  to  fill  again.  I 
plowed  through  it,  and  tried  to  look  about  me.  Ev- 
erything was  a  sort  of  streaked  misty  gray,  an  all- 
enveloping  muffling  leaden  maelstrom  that  hurt 
177 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

your  skin  when  you  lifted  your  head  and  tried  to 
look  it  in  the  face.  Once,  in  a  lull  of  the  wind  when 
the  snow  was  not  so  thick,  I  caught  sight  of  the 
hay-stacks.  That  gave  me  a  line  on  the  hen-house. 
So  I  made  for  it,  on  the  run,  holding  my  head  low 
as  I  went. 

It  was  glorious,  at  first,  it  made  my  lungs  pump 
and  my  blood  race  and  my  legs  tingle.  Then  the 
storm-devils  howled  in  my  eyes  and  the  ice-lashes 
snapped  in  my  face.  Then  the  wind  went  off  on  a 
rampage  again,  and  I  couldn't  see.  I  couldn't  move 
forward.  I  couldn't  even  breathe.  Then  I  got 
frightened. 

I  leaned  there  against  the  wind  calling  for  Dinky- 
Dunk  and  Olie,  whenever  I  could  gasp  breath 
enough  to  make  a  sound.  But  I  might  as  well  have 
been  a  baby  crying  in  mid-ocean  to  a  Kensington 
Gardens  nurse. 

Then  I  knew  I  was  lost.  No  one  could  ever  hear 
me  in  that  roar.  And  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen, 
just  a  driving,  blinding,  stinging  gray  pall  of  fly- 
ing fury  that  nettled  the  naked  skin  like  electric- 
178 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIIE 

massage  and  took  the  breath  out  of  your  buffeted 
body.  There  was  no  land-mark,  no  glimpse  of  any 
building,  nothing  whatever  to  go  by.  And  I  felt 
so  helpless  in  the  face  of  that  wind!  It  seemed  to 
take  the  power  of  locomotion  from  my  legs.  I 
was  not  altogether  amazed  at  the  thought  that  I 
might  die  there,  within  a  hundred  yards  of  my 
own  home,  so  near  those  narrow  walls  within  which 
were  warmth,  and  shelter,  and  quietness.  I  imag- 
ined how  they'd  find  my  body,  deep  under  the  snow, 
some  morning ;  how  Dinky-Dunk  would  search,  per- 
haps for  days.  I  felt  so  sorry  for  him  I  decided 
not  to  give  up,  that  I  wouldn't  be  lost,  that  I 
wouldn't  die  there  like  a  fly  on  a  sheet  of  tangle- 
foot! 

I  had  fallen  down  on  my  knees,  with  my  back 
to  the  wind,  and  already  the  snow  had  drifted 
around  me.  I  also  found  my  eye-lashes  frozen 
together,  and  I  lost  several  winkers  in  getting  rid 
of  those  solidified  tears.  But  I  got  to  my  feet 
and  battled  on,  calling  when  I  could.  I  kept  on, 
going  round  and  round  in  a  circle,  I  suppose,  as 
179 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

people  always  do  when  they're  lost  in  a  storm. 
Then  the  wind  grew  worse  again.  I  couldn't  make 
any  headway  against  it.  I  had  to  give  up.  I 
simply  had  to !  I  wasn't  afraid.  I  wasn't  terrified 
at  the  thought  of  what  was  happening  to  me.  I 
was  only  sorry,  with  a  misty  sort  of  sorrow  I  can't 
explain.  And  I  don't  remember  that  I  felt  partic- 
ularly uncomfortable,  except  for  the  fact  I  found 
it  rather  hard  to  breathe. 

It  was  Olie  who  found  me.  He  came  staggering 
through  the  snow  with  extra  fuel  for  the  bunk- 
house,  and  nearly  walked  over  me.  As  we  found 
out  afterward,  I  wasn't  more  than  thirty  steps 
away  from  that  bunk-house  door.  Olie  pulled  me 
up  out  of  the  snow  the  same  as  you'd  pull  a  skein 
of  darning-silk  out  of  a  work-basket.  He  half 
carried  me  to  the  bunk-house,  got  his  bearings, 
and  then  steered  me  for  the  shack.  It  was  a  fight, 
but  we  made  it.  And  Dinky-Dunk  was  still  out 
looking  after  his  stock  and  doesn't  know  how  nearly 
he  lost  his  Lady  Bird.  I've  made  Olie  promise 
not  to  say  a  word  about  it.  But  the  top  of  my 
180 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

nose  is  red  and  swollen.  I  think  it  must  have  got 
a  trifle  frost-nipped,  in  the  encounter.  The 
weather  has  cleared  now,  and  the  wind  has  gone 
down.  But  it  is  very  cold,  and  Dinky-Dunk  has 
just  reported  that  it's  already  forty-eight  below 
lero. 


Tuesday  the  Nineteenth 

The  days  slip  away  and  I  scarcely  know  where 
they  go.  The  weather  is  wonderful.  Clear  and 
cold,  with  such  heaps  of  sunshine  you'd  never 
dream  it  was  zero  weather.  But  you  have  to  be 
careful,  and  always  wear  furs  when  you're  driv- 
ing, or  out  for  any  length  of  time.  Three  hours 
in  this  open  air  is  as  good  as  a  pint  of  Chinkie's 
best  champagne.  It  makes  me  tingle.  We  are 
living  high,  with  several  barrels  of  frozen  game 
— geese,  duck  and  prairie-chicken — and  also  an  old 
tin  trunk  stuffed  full  of  beef-roasts,  cut  the  right 
size.  I  bring  them  in  and  thaw  them  out  over- 
night, as  I  need  them.  The  freezing  makes  them 
very  tender.  But  they  must  be  completely  thawe(f 
before  they  go  into  the  oven,  or  the  outside  will 
be  overdone  and  the  inside  still  raw.  I  learned  that 
by  experience.  My  appetite  is  disgraceful,  and 
I'm  still  gaining.     Chinkie  could  never  again  say 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

1  reminded  him  of  one  of  the  lean  kine  in  Pharaoh's 
dream. 

I  have  been  asking  Dinky-Dunk  if  it  isn't  down- 
right cruelty  to  leave  horses  and  cattle  out  on  the 
range  in  weather  like  this.  My  husband  says  not, 
so  long  as  they  have  a  wind-break  in  time  of  storms. 
The  animals  paw  through  the  snow  for  grass  to 
eat,  and  when  they  get  thirsty  they  can  eat  the 
snow  itself,  which,  Dinky-Dunk  solemnly  assures 
me,  almost  never  gives  them  sore  throat !  But  the 
open  prairie,  just  at  this  season,  is  a  most  inhos- 
pitable looking  pasturage,  and  the  unbroken  glare 
of  white  makes  my  eyes  ache.  .  .  •  There's  one 
big  indoor  task  I  finally  have  accomplished,  and 
that  is  tuning  my  piano.  It  made  my  heart  heavy, 
standing  there  useless,  a  gloomy  monument  of 
ironic  grandeur. 

As  a  girl  I  used  to  watch  Katrinka's  long-haired 
Alsatian  putting  her  concert  grand  to  rights,  and 
I  knew  that  my  ear  was  dependable  enough.  So 
the  second  day  after  my  baby  grand's  arrival  I 
vent  at  it  with  a  monkey-wrench.  But  that  was 
183 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

a  failure.  Then  I  made  a  drawing  of  a  tuning- 
hammer  and  had  Olie  secretly  convey  it  to  the  Buck- 
horn  blacksmith,  who  in  turn  concocted  a  great 
steel  hollow-headed  monstrosity  which  actually  fits 
over  the  pins  to  which  the  piano  wires  are  strung^ 
even  though  the  aforesaid  monstrosity  is  heavy 
enough  to  stun  an  ox  with.  But  it  did  the  work, 
although  it  took  about  two  half-days,  and  now 
every  note  is  true.  So  now  I  have  music!  And 
Dinky-Dunk  does  enjoy  my  playing,  these  long 
winter  evenings.  Some  nights  we  let  Olie  come 
in  and  listen  to  the  concert.  He  sits  rapt,  espe- 
cially when  I  play  rag-time,  which  seems  the  one 
thing  that  touches  his  holy  of  holies.  Poor  Olie! 
I  surely  have  a  good  friend  in  that  silent,  faithful, 
uncouth  Swede! 

Dinky-Dunk  himself  is  so  thin  that  it  worries 
me.  But  he  eats  well  and  doesn't  anathematize 
my  cooking.  He's  getting  a  few  gray  hairs,  at 
the  temples.  I  think  they  make  him  look  rather 
distingue.  But  they  worry  my  poor  Dinky-Dunk. 
"HuUy  Gee,"  he  said  yesterday,  studying  himself 
184 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

for  the  third  time  in  his  shaving-glass,  "I'm  getting 
old !"  He  laughed  when  I  started  to  whistle  "Be- 
lieve me  if  all  those  endearing  young  charms,  whicH 
I  gaze  on  so  fondly  to-day,"  but  at  heart  he  was' 
really  disturbed  by  the  discovery  of  those  few 
white  hairs.  I've  been  telling  him  that  the  ladies 
won't  love  him  any  more,  and  that  his  cut-up  days 
are  over.  He  says  I'll  have  to  make  up  for  the 
others.  So  I  started  for  him  with  my  Australian 
crawl-stroke.  It  took  me  an  hour  to  get  the  taste 
of  shaving  soap  out  of  my  mouth.  Dinky-Dunk 
says  I'm  so  full  of  hfe  that  I  sparkle,  AH  I  know 
is  that  I'm  happy,  supremely  and  ridiculously 
happy ! 


185 


Sunday  the  Thirty-first 

The  inevitable  has  happened.  I  don't  know  how 
to  write  about  it!  I  canH  write  about  itl  My 
heart  goes  down  like  a  freight  elevator,  slowly, 
sickeningly,  even  when  I  think  about  it.  Dinky- 
Dunk  came  in  and  saw  me  studying  a  little  row 
of  dates  written  on  the  wall-paper  beside  the  bed- 
room window.  I  pretended  to  be  draping  the  cur- 
tain. "What's  the  matter,  Lady  Bird?"  he  de- 
manded when  he  saw  my  face.  I  calmly  told  him 
that  nothing  was  the  matter.  But  he  wouldn't  let 
me  go.  I  wanted  to  be  alone,  to  think  things  out. 
But  he  kept  holding  me  there,  with  my  face  to 
the  light.  I  suppose  I  must  have  been  all  eyes, 
and  probably  shaking  a  little.  And  I  didn't  want 
him  to  suspect. 

"Excuse  me  if  I  find  you  unspeakably  annoy- 
ing!" I  said  in  a  voice  that  was  so  desperately 
cold  that  it  even  surprised  my  own  ears.  Hfi 
186 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

dropped  me  as  though  I  had  been  a  hot  potato.  I 
could  see  that  I'd  hurt  him,  and  hurt  him  a  lot. 
My  first  impulse  was  to  run  to  him  with  a  shower 
of  repentant  kisses,  as  one  usually  does,  the  same 
as  one  sprinkles  salt  on  claret  stains.  But  in  him 
I  beheld  the  original  and  entire  cause — and  I  just 
couldn't  do  it.  He  called  me  a  high-spirited  devil 
with  a  hair-trigger  temper.  But  he  left  me  alone 
to  think  things  out. 


187 


Tuesday  the  Ninth 

I've  started  to  say  my  prayers  again.  It  rathef 
frightened  Dinky-Dunk,  who  sat  up  in  bed  and 
asked  me  if  I  wasn't  feeling  well.  I  promptly 
assured  him  that  I  was  in  the  best  of  health.  He 
not  only  agreed  with  me,  but  said  I  was  as  plump 
as  a  partridge.  When  I  am  alone,  though,  I  get 
frightened  and  fidgety.  So  I  kneel  down  every 
night  and  morning  now  and  ask  God  for  help  and 
guidance.  I  want  to  be  a  good  woman  and  a  better 
wife.     But  I  shall  never  let  Duncan  know — ^never! 


188 


Wednesday  the  Seventeenth 

Do  jou  remember  Aunt  Harriet  who  always  wept 
when  she  read  The  Isles  of  Greece?  She  didn't 
even  know  where  they  were,  and  had  never  been  east 
of  Salem.  But  all  the  Woodberrys  were  like  that. 
Dinky-Dunk  came  in  and  found  me  crying  to-day, 
for  the  second  time  in  one  week.  He  made  such 
valiantly  ponderous  efforts  to  cheer  me  up,  poor 
boy,  and  shook  his  head  and  said  I'd  soon  be  an 
improvement  on  the  Snider  System,  which  is  a  sys- 
tem of  irrigation  by  spraying  overnight  from 
pipes!  My  nerves  don't  seem  so  good  as  they 
were.  The  winter's  so  long.  I'm  already  count- 
ing Ivhe  days  to  spring. 


isg 


Thursday  the  Twenty-fifth 

Dinky-Dunk  has  concluded  that  I'm  too  much 
alone ;  he's  been  worrying  over  it.  I  can  tell  that. 
I  try  not  to  be  moody,  but  sometimes  I  simply 
can't  help  it.  Yesterday  afternoon  he  drove  up 
to  Casa  Grande,  proud  as  Punch,  with  a  little  black 
and  white  kitten  in  the  crook  of  his  arm.  He'd 
covered  twenty-eight  miles  of  trail  for  that  kitten ! 
It's  to  be  my  companion.  But  the  kitten's  as  lone- 
some as  I  am,  and  has  been  crying,  and  nearly 
driving  me  crazy. 


190 


'Tuesday  the  Second 

The  weather  has  been  bad,  but  winter  is  slip- 
ping away.  Dinky-Dunk  has  been  staying  in  from 
his  work,  these  mornings,  helping  me  about  the 
house.  He  is  clumsy  and  slow,  and  has  brokea 
two  or  three  of  the  dishes.  But  I  hate  to  say  any- 
thing; his  eyes  get  so  tragic.  He  declares  that 
as  soon  as  the  trails  are  passable  he's  going  to  have 
a  woman  to  help  me,  that  this  sort  of  thing  can't 
go  on  any  longer.  He  imagines  it's  merely  the 
monotony  of  housework  that  is  making  my  nerves 
so  bad. 

Yesterday  morning  I  was  drying  the  dishes  and 
Dinky-Dunk  was  washing.  I  found  the  second 
spoon  with  egg  on  it.  I  don't  know  why  it  was, 
but  that  trivial  streak  of  yellow  along  the  edge 
of  a  spoon  suddenly  seemed  to  enrage  me.  It  be- 
came monumental,  an  emblem  of  vague  incapabil- 
ities which  I  would  have  to  face  until  the  end  of 
191 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

my  days.  I  flung  that  spoon  back  in  the  dish-pan. 
Then  I  turned  on  my  husband  and  called  out  to 
him,  in  a  voice  that  didn't  quite  seem  like  my  own, 
**0  God,  can't  you  wash  'em  clean?  Can't  you 
wash  'em  clean?"  I  even  think  I  ran  up  and  down 
the  room  and  pretty  well  made  what  Percival  Ben- 
son would  call  "a,  bally  ass"  of  myself.  Dinky- 
Dunk  didn't  even  answer  me.  But  he  dried  his 
hands  and  got  his  things  and  went  outdoors,  to 
the  stables,  I  suppose.  His  face  was  as  colorless 
as  it  could  possibly  get.  I  felt  sorry;  but  it  was 
too  late.  And  my  sniffling  didn't  do  any  good. 
And  it  startled  me,  as  I  sat  thinking  things  over, 
to  realize  that  I'd  lost  my  sense  of  humor. 


192 


Thursday  the  Fourth 

DiNXY-DuNK  thinks  I'm  mad.  I'm  quite  sure 
lie  does.  He  came  in  at  noon  to-day  and  found 
me  on  the  floor  with  the  kitten.  I'd  tied  a  piece 
of  fur  to  the  end  of  a  string.  Oh,  how  that  kitten 
scrambled  after  that  fur,  round  and  round  in  a 
circle  until  he'd  tumble  over  on  his  own  ears!  I 
was  squeaking  and  weak  with  laughing  when 
Dinky-Dunk  stood  in  the  door.  Poor  boy,  he  takes 
things  so  solemnly!  But  I  know  he  thinks  I'm 
quite  mad.  Perhaps  I  am.  I  cried  myself  to  sleep 
last  night.  And  for  several  days  now  I've  had  a 
longing  for  caviare. 


19S 


Wednesday  the  Seventeenth 

Spring  is  surely  coming.  It  promises  to  be  an 
early  one.  I  feel  better  at  the  thought  of  it,  and 
of  getting  out  again.  But  the  roads  are  quite 
impassable.  Such  mud!  Such  oceans  of  glue-pot 
dirt!  They  have  a  saying  out  here  that  soil  is 
as  rich  as  it  is  sticky.  If  this  is  true  Dinky-Dunk 
has  a  second  Garden  of  Eden.  This  mud  sticks 
to  everything,  to  feet,  to  clothes,  to  wagon-wheels. 
But  there's  getting  to  be  real  warmth  in  the  sun 
that  shines  through  my  window. 


1941 


Saturday  the  Twenty-seventh 

A  WARM  Chinook  has  licked  up  the  last  of  the 
snow.  Even  Dinky-Dunk  admits  that  spring  is 
coming.  For  three  solid  hours  an  awakened  blue- 
bottle has  been  buzzing  against  the  pane  of  my 
bedroom  window.  I  wonder  if  most  of  us  aren't 
like  that  fly,  mystified  by  the  illusion  of  light  that 
fails  to  lead  to  hberty?  This  morning  I  caught 
sight  of  Dinky-Dunk  in  his  fur  coat,  climbing  into 
the  buckboard.  I  shall  always  hate  to  see  him  in 
that  rig.  It  makes  me  think  of  a  certain  night. 
And  we  hate  to  have  memory  put  a  finger  on  our 
mental  scars.  When  I  was  a  girl  Aunt  Charlotte's 
second  fiend  of  a  husband  locked  me  up  in  that 
lonely  Derby  house  of  theirs  because  I  threw  peb- 
bles at  the  swans.  Then  off  they  drove  to  dinner 
somewhere  and  left  me  a  prisoner  there,  where  I 
sat  listening  to  the  bells  of  All  Saints  as  the  house 
gradually  grew  dark.  And  ever  since  then  bells 
195 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

at  evening  have  made  me   feel  lonely   and   left 
me  unhappy. 

But  the  renaissance  of  the  buckboard  means  that 
spring  is  here  again.  And  for  my  Dinky-Dunk 
that  means  harder  work.  He's  what  they  caU  a 
"rustler"  out  here.  He  believes  in  speed.  He 
doesn't  even  wait  until  the  frost  is  out  of  the  ground 
before  he  starts  to  seed — ^just  puts  a  drill  over  a 
two-inch  batter  of  thawed-out  mud,  he's  so  mad 
about  getting  early  on  the  land.  He  says  he  wants 
early  wheat  or  no  wheat.  But  he  has  to  have 
help,  and  men  are  almost  impossible  to  get.  He 
had  hoped  for  a  gasoline  tractor,  but  it  can't  be 
financed  this  spring,  he  has  confessed  to  me.  And 
I  know,  in  my  secret  heart  of  hearts,  that  the 
tractor  would  have  been  here  if  it  hadn't  been  for 
my  piano! 

There  are  still  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  acres 
of  prairie  sod  to  "break"  for  spring  wheat.  Dinky- 
Dunk  declares  that  he's  going  to  risk  everything 
on  wheat  this  year.  He  says  that  by  working  two 
outfits  of  horses  he  himself  can  sow  forty  acres 
196 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

a  day,  but  that  means  keeping  the  horses  on  the 
trot  part  of  the  time.  He  is  thinking  so  much 
about  his  crop  that  I  accused  him  of  neglecting  me. 
''Is  the  varnish  starting  to  wear  off?"  I  inquired 
with  a  secret  gulp  of  womanish  self-pity.  He 
saved  the  day  by  declaring  I  was  just  as  crazy  and 
just  as  adorable  as  I  ever  was.  Then  he  asked 
me,  rather  sadly,  if  I  was  bored.  **Bored?"  I  said, 
"how  could  I  be  bored  with  aU  these  discomforts  .f* 
No  one  is  ever  bored  until  they  are  comfortable!" 
But  the  moment  after  I'd  said  it  I  was  sorry. 


197 


ituesday  the  SiootJi 

Spring  is  here,  with  a  warm  Chinook  creeping 
in  from  the  Rockies  and  a  sky  of  robin-egg  blue. 
The  gophers  have  come  out  of  their  winter  quarters 
and  are  chattering  and  racing  about.  We  saw  a 
phalanx  of  wild  geese  going  northward,  and  Dinky- 
Dunk  says  he's  seen  any  number  of  ducks.  They 
go  in  drifting  V's,  and  I  love  to  watch  them  melt  in 
the  sky-line.  The  prairie  floor  is  turning  to  the 
loveliest  of  greens,  and  it  is  a  joy  just  to  be  alive. 
I  have  bsen  out  all  afternoon.  The  gophers  aren't 
gQi?)^  to  get  ahead  of  me! 


198 


Monday  the  Twelfth 

What  would  you  say  if  you  saw  Brunhild 
drive  up  to  your  back  door?  What  would  you  do 
if  you  discovered  a  Norse  goddess  placidly  sur- 
veying you  from  a  green  wagon-seat?  How  would 
you  act  if  you  beheld  a  big  blonde  Valkyr  suddenly 
introducing  herself  into  your  little  earthly  aifairs? 

Well,  can  you  wonder  that  I  stared,  all  eyes, 
when  Dinky-Dunk  brought  home  a  figure  hke  this, 
in  the  shape  of  a  Finn  girl  named  Olga  Sarristo? 
Olga  is  to  work  in  the  fields,  and  to  help  me  when 
she  has  time.  But  I'll  never  get  used  to  having 
a  Norse  Legend  standing  at  my  elbow,  for  Olga 
is  the  most  wonderful  creature  I  have  ever  clapped 
eyes  on.  I  say  that  without  doubt,  and  without 
exaggeration.  And  what  made  the  picture  com' 
plete,  she  came  driving  a  yoke  of  oxen — for  Dinky- 
Dunk  will  have  need  of  every  horse  and  hauling 
«iimal  he  can  lay  his  hands  on.  I  simply  hel^ 
199 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

my  breath  as  I  stared  up  at  her,  high  on  her  wagon- 
seat,  blocked  out  in  silhouette  against  the  pale  sky- 
line, a  Brunhild  with  cowhide  boots  on.  She 
wore  a  pale  blue  petticoat  and  a  Swedish  looking 
black  shawl  with  bright-colored  flowers  worked 
along  the  hem.  She  had  no  hat.  But  she  had 
two  great  ropes  of  pale  gold  hair,  almost  as  thick 
as  my  arm,  and  hanging  almost  as  low  as  her 
knees.  She  looked  colossal  up  on  the  wagon-seat„ 
but  when  she  got  down  on  the  ground  she  was 
not  so  immense.  She  is,  however,  a  strapping  big- 
woman,  and  I  don't  think  I  ever  saw  such  shoulders  £ 
She  is  Olympian,  Titanic!  She  makes  me  think 
of  the  Venus  de  Milo ;  there's  such  a  largeness  and 
calmness  and  smoothness  of  surface  about  her.  I 
suppose  a  Saint-Gaudens  might  say  that  her  mouth 
was  too  big  and  a  Gibson  might  add  that  her  nose 
hadn't  the  narrow  rectitude  of  a  Greek  statue's, 
but  she's  a  beautiful,  a  beautiful — "woman"  was 
the  word  I  was  going  to  write,  but  the  word  "ani- 
mal" just  bunts  and  shoves  itself  in,  like  a  stabled 
cow  insisting  on  its  own  stall.  But  if  you  regard 
200 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

her  as  only  animal,  you  must  at  least  accept  her 
as  a  perfect  one.  Her  mouth  is  large,  but  I  never 
saw  such  red  lips,  full  and  red  and  dewy.  Her 
forehead  is  low  and  square,  but  milky  smooth,  and 
I  know  she  could  crack  a  chicken-bone  between  those 
white  teeth  of  hers.  Even  her  tongue,  I  noticed, 
is  a  watermelon  red.  She  must  be  healthy.  Dinky- 
Dunk  says  she's  a  find,  that  she  can  drive  a  double- 
seeder  as  well  as  any  man  in  the  West,  and  that 
by  taking  her  for  the  season  he  gets  the  use  of 
the  ox-team  as  well.  He  warned  me  not  to  ask 
her  about  her  family,  as  only  a  few  weeks  ago 
her  father  and  younger  brother  were  burned  to 
death  in  their  shack,  a  hundred  miles  or  so  north 
of  us. 


201 


Tuesday  the  TwentietK 

Olga  has  been  with  us  a  week,  and  she  still  fas- 
cinates me.  She  is  installed  in  the  annex,  and  seems 
calmly  satisfied  with  her  surroundings.  She 
brought  everything  she  owns  tied  up  in  an  oat-sack. 
I  have  given  her  a  few  of  my  things,  for  which 
she  seems  dumbly  grateful.  She  seldom  talks,  and 
never  laughs.  But  I  am  teaching  her  to  say  "yes" 
instead  of  "yaw."  She  studies  me  with  her  limpid 
blue  eyes,  and  if  she  is  silent  she  is  never  sullen. 
She  hasn't  the  heavy  forehead  and  jaw  of  the  Ga- 
lician  women  and  she  hasn't  the  Asiatic  cast  of 
face  that  belongs  to  the  Russian  peasant.  And 
she  has  the  finest  mouthful  of  teeth  I  ever  saw  in 
a  human  head — and  she  never  used  a  toothbrush 
in  her  life !  She  is  only  nineteen,  but  such  a  bosom, 
such  limbs,  such  strength! 

This  is  a  great  deal  of  talk  about  Olga,  I'lt 
nfraid,  but  you  must  remember  that  Olga  is  ae 
202 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

event.  I  expected  Olie  would  be  keeled  over  by 
her  arrival,  but  they  seem  to  regard  each  other 
with  silent  contempt.  I  suppose  that  is  because 
racially  and  physically  they  are  of  the  same  type. 
I'm  anxious  to  see  what  Percival  Benson  thinks  of 
Olga  when  he  gets  back — they  would  be  such  op- 
posites.  Olga  is  working  with  her  ox-team  on  the 
land.  Two  days  ago  I  rode  out  on  Paddy  and 
watched  her.  There  was  something  Homeric  about 
it,  something  Sorolla  would  have  jumped  at.  She 
seemed  so  like  her  oxen.  She  moved  like  them, 
and  her  eyes  were  like  theirs.  She  has  the  same 
strength  and  solemnity  when  she  walks.  She's  so 
primitive  and  natural  and  instinctive  in  her  ac- 
tions. Yesterday,  after  dinner,  she  curled  up  on 
a  pile  of  hay  at  one  end  of  the  corral  and  fell 
asleep  for  a  few  minutes,  flat  in  the  strong  noon- 
day light.  I  saw  Dinky-Dunk  stop  on  his  way 
to  the  stable  and  stand  and  look  down  at  her.  I 
slipped  out  beside  him.  "God,  what  a  woman  !"^ 
he  said  under  his  breath.  A  vague  stab  of  jeal- 
ousy went  through  me  as  I  heard  him  say  that. 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

Then  I  looked  at  her  hand,  large,  relaxed,  rough- 
ened with  all  kinds  of  weather  and  calloused  with 
heavy  work.  And  this  time  it  was  an  equally  vague 
stab  of  pity  that  went  through  me. 


S04.' 


Monday  the  Twenty-dxih 

The  rush  is  on,  and  Dinkj-Dunk  is  always  out 
before  six.  If  it's  true,  as  some  one  once  said, 
that  the  pleasures  of  life  depended  on  its  anxieties, 
f;hen  we  ought  to  be  a  hilarious  household.  Every 
one  is  busy,  and  I  do  what  I  can  to  help.  I  don't 
know  why  it  is,  but  I  find  an  odd  comfort  in  the 
thought  of  having  another  woman  near  me,  even 
Olga.  She  also  helps  me  a  great  deal  with  the 
housework.  Those  huge  hands  of  hers  have  a  dex- 
terity you'd  never  dream  of.  She  thinks  the  piano 
a  sort  of  miracle,  and  me  a  second  miracle  for  being 
able  to  play  it.  In  the  evening  she  sits  back  in  a 
corner,  the  darkest  corner  she  can  find,  and  lis- 
tens. She  never  speaks,  never  moves,  never  ex- 
presses one  iota  of  emotion.  But  in  the  gloom  I 
can  often  catch  the  animal-like  glow  of  her  eyes. 
They  seem  almost  phosphorescent.  Dinky-Dunk 
had  a  long  letter  from  Percival  Benson  to-day.  It 
205 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

was  interesting  and  offhandedly  jolly  and  just  the 
right  sort.  And  Percy  says  he'll  be  back  on  the 
Titchborne  place  in  a  few  weeks. 


sog 


Wednesday  the  Twenty -eighih 

Olga  went  through  the  boards  of  her  wagon- 
box  and  got  a  bad  scrape  on  her  leg.  She  showed 
me  the  extent  of  her  injuries,  without  the  slightest 
hesitation,  and  I  gave  her  first-aid  treatment  with 
my  carbolated  vaseline.  And  still  again  I  had  to 
think  of  the  Venus  de  Milo,  for  it  was  a  knee  like 
a  statue's,  milky  white  and  round  and  smooth,  with 
a  skin  like  a  baby's,  and  so  different  to  her  sun- 
burnt forearms.  It  was  Olympian  more  than  Fifth- 
Avenuey.  It  was  a  leg  that  made  me  think,  not 
of  Rubens,  but  of  Titian,  and  my  thoughts  at 
once  went  out  to  the  right-hand  lady  of  the  "Sacred 
and  Profane  Love,"  in  the  Borghese,  there  was  such 
softness  and  roundness  combined  with  its  strength. 
And  Dinky-Dunk  walked  in  and  stood  staring  at 
it,  himself,  with  never  so  much  as  a  word  of  apol- 
ogy. Olga  looked  up  at  him  without  a  flicker  of 
her  ox-like  eyes.  It  wasn't  until  I  made  an  angry 
207 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

motion  for  her  to  drop  her  skirt  that  she  realized 
any  necessity  for  covering  the  Titian  knee.  But 
again  I  felt  that  odd  pang  of  jealousy  needle 
through  me  as  I  saw  his  face.  At  least  I  suppose 
it  was  jealousy,  the  jealousy  of  an  artful  little 
Mona-Lisa  minx  who  didn't  even  class  in  with  the 
demi-gods.  When  Olga  was  gone,  however,  I  said 
to  Dinky-Dunk :  "Isn't  that  a  limb  for  your  life  ?" 

He  merely  said:  ''We  don't  grow  limbs  up  here. 
Tabby.    They're  legs,  just  plain  legs !" 

"Anything  but  pZam/"  I  corrected  him.  Then 
he  acknowledged  that  he'd  seen  those  knees  before. 
He'd  stumbled  on  Olga  and  her  brother  knee-deep 
in  mud  and  cow  manure,  treading  a  mixture  to  plas- 
ter their  shack  with,  the  same  as  the  Doukhobors 
do.  It  left  me  less  envious  of  those  Junoesque 
knees. 


208 


Monday  the  Second 

Keeping  chickens  is  a  much  more  complicated 
thing  than  the  outsider  imagines.  For  example, 
several  of  my  best  hens,  quite  untouched  by  the 
modern  spirit  of  feminine  unrest,  have  been  devel- 
oping ^'broodiness"  and  I  have  been  trying  to 
*'break  them  up,"  as  the  poulterers  put  it.  But 
they  are  determined  to  set.  This  mothering  instinct 
is  a  fine  enough  thing  in  its  way,  but  it's  been 
spoiling  too  many  good  eggs.  So  I've  been  trying  to 
emancipate  these  ruffled  females.  I  lift  them  off  the 
nest  by  the  tail  feathers,  ten  times  a  day.  I  fling 
cold  water  in  their  solemn  maternal  faces.  I  put 
little  rings  of  barb-wire  under  their  sentimental  old 
bosoms.  But  still  they  set.  And  one,  having  pecked 
me  on  the  wrist  until  the  blood  came,  got  her  ears 
promptly  boxed — in  face  of  the  fact  that  all  poul- 
try keepers  acknowledge  that  kindness  to  a  hen 
improves  her  laying  qualities. 
209 


Thursday  the  Fifth 

Casa  Grande  is  a  beehive  of  industry.  Every- 
one has  a  part  to  play.  I  am  no  longer  expected 
to  sit  by  the  fire  and  purr.  At  nights  I  sew. 
Dinky-Dunk  is  so  hard  on  his  clothes !  When  it's 
not  putting  on  patches  it's  sewing  on  buttons. 
Then  we  go  to  bed  at  half -past  nine.  At  half- 
past  nine,  think  of  it!  Little  me,  who  more  than 
once  went  humming  up  Fifth  Avenue  when  morn- 
ing was  showing  gray  over  the  East  River,  and 
often  left  Sherry's  (oh,  those  dear  old  dancing 
days!)  when  the  milk  wagons  were  rumbling 
through  Forty-fourth  Street,  and  once  trium- 
phantly announced,  on  coming  out  of  Dorlon's  and 
studying  the  old  Oyster-Letter  clock,  that  I'd  stuck 
it  out  to  Y  minutes  past  O !  But  it's  no  hardship 
to  get  up  at  five,  these  glorious  mornings.  The 
days  get  longer,  and  the  weather  is  perfect.  And 
the  prairie  looks  as  though  a  vacuum  cleaner  had 
^10 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

been  at  work  on  it  overnight.  Positively,  there's 
a  charwoman  who  does  this  old  world  over,  while 
we  sleep!  By  morning  it's  as  bright  as  a  new 
pin.  And  out  here  every  one  is  thinking  of  the 
day  ahead;  Dinky-Dunk,  of  his  crop;  Olga,  of 
the  pair  of  sky-blue  corsets  I've  written  to  the 
Winnipeg  mail-order  house  for;  Olie,  of  the  final 
waterproofing  of  the  granaries  so  the  wheat  won't 
get  spoilt  any  more ;  Gee-Gee,  herself,  of — of  some- 
thing which  she's  almost  afraid  to  think  about. 

Dinky-Dunk,  in  his  deviling  moods,  says  I'm 
an  old  married  woman  now,  that  I'm  settled,  that 
I've  eaten  my  pie!  Perhaps  I  have.  I'm  not  im- 
aginative, so  I  must  depend  on  others  for  my  joy 
of  living.  I  know  now  that  I  can  never  create, 
never  really  express  myself  in  any  way  worth  while, 
either  on  paper  or  canvas  or  keyboard.  And  peo- 
ple without  imagination,  I  suppose,  simply  have  to 
drop  back  to  racial  simplicities — which  means  I'll 
have  to  have  a  family,  and  feed  hungry  mouths, 
and  keep  a  home  going.  And  I'll  have  to  get  all 
my  art  at  second-hand,  from  magazines  and  gram- 
211 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

ophone  records  and  plaster-of -Paris  casts.  Just 
a  housewife!  And  I  so  wanted  to  be  something 
more,  once !  Yet  I  wonder  if,  after  all,  the  one  is 
so  much  better  than  the  other?  I  wonder?  And 
here  comes  my  Dinky-Dunk,  and  in  three  minutes 
he'll  be  kissing  me  on  the  tip  of  the  chin  and  ask- 
ing me  what  there's  going  to  be  good  for  supper ! 
And  that  is  better  than  fame!  For  all  afternoon 
those  twelve  little  lines  of  Dobson's  have  been  run- 
ning through  my  head: 

Fame  is  a  food  that  dead  men  eat — 
I  have  no  stomach  for  such  meat. 
In  little  light  and  narrow  rooms, 
They  eat  it  in  the  silent  tombs. 
With  no  kind  voice  of  comrade  near 
To  bid  the  banquet  be  of  cheer. 

But  Friendship  is  a  noble  thing — 
Of  Friendship  it  is  good  to  sing. 
For  truly  when  a  man  shall  end. 
He  lives  in  memory  of  his  friend 
Who  doth  his  better  part  recall 
And  of  his  faults  make  funeral! 

But  when  you  put  the  word  "love"  there  in- 

m2 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

stead  of  "friendship"  you  make  it  even  better.  .  .  , 
Olga,  by  the  way,  is  not  so  stupid  as  you  might 
imagine.  She's  discovered  something  which  I  didn't 
intend  her  to  find  out.  .  .  .  And  Olie,  also 
by  the  way,  has  solved  the  problem  of  "breaking 
up"  my  setting  hens.  He  has  made  a  swinging 
coop  with  a  wire  netting  bottom,  for  all  the  world 
like  the  hanging  gardens  of  Babylon,  and  into  this 
all  the  ruffled  mothers-to-be  have  been  thrust  and 
the  coop  hung  up  on  the  hen-house  wall.  Open 
wire  is  a  very  uncomfortable  thing  to  set  on,  and 
these  hens  have  at  last  discovered  that  fact.  I 
have  been  out  looking  at  them.  I  never  saw  such 
a  parliament  of  solemn  indignation.  But  their 
pride  has  been  broken,  and  they  are  beginning 
%o  show  a  healthier  interest  in  their  meals. 


n$ 


Tuesday  the  Tenth 

I've  been  wondering  if  Dinky-Dunk  is  going  to 
fall  in  love  with  Olga.  Yesterday  I  saw  him  star- 
ing at  her  neck.  She's  the  type  of  woman  that 
would  really  make  the  right  sort  of  wilderness  wife. 
She  seems  an  integral  part  of  the  prairie,  broad- 
bosomed,  fecund,  opulent.  And  she's  so  placid  and 
large  and  soft-spoken  and  easy  to  live  with.  She 
has  none  of  my  moods  and  tantrums. 

Her  corsets  came  to-day,  and  I  showed  her  how 
to  put  them  on.  She  is  incontinently  proud  of 
them,  but  in  my  judgment  they  only  make  her 
ridiculous.  It's  as  foolish  as  putting  a  French 
toque  on  one  of  her  oxen.  The  skin  of  Olga's 
great  shoulders  is  as  smooth  and  creamy  as  a 
baby's.  I  have  been  watching  her  eyes.  They  are 
not  a  dark  blue,  but  in  a  strong  side-light  they 
seem  deep  wells  of  light,  layer  on  layer  of  azure. 
And  she  is  mysterious  to  me,  calmly  and  magnifi- 
^14 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

cently  inscrutable.  And  I  once  thought  her  an 
uncouth  animal.  But  she  is  a  great  help.  She 
has  planted  rows  and  rows  of  sweet  peas  all  about 
Casa  Grande  and  is  starting  to  make  a  kitchen 
garden,  which  she's  going  to  fence  off  and  look 
after  with  her  own  hands.  It  will  be  twice  the 
size  of  Olie's.  But  I  do  hope  she  doesn't  ever  grow 
Into  something  mysterious  to  my  Dinky-Dunk. 
This  morning  she  said  I  ought  to  work  in  the  gar- 
den, that  the  more  I  kept  on  my  feet  the  better 
it  would  be  for  me  later  on. 

As  for  Dinky-Dunk,  the  poor  boy  is  working 
Hmself  gaunt.  Yet  tired  as  he  is,  he  tries  to  read 
a  few  pages  of  something  worth  while  every  night. 
Sometimes  we  take  turns  in  reading.  Last  night 
he  handed  me  over  his  volume  of  Spencer  with  a 
pencil  mark  along  one  passage.  This  passage  said : 
"Intellectual  activity  in  women  is  liable  to  be  dim- 
inished after  marriage  by  that  antagonism  between 
individuation  and  reproduction  everywhere  opera- 
tive throughout  the  organic  world."  I  don't  know 
why,  but  that  passage  made  me  as  hot  as  a  hornet 
215 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

In  the  background  of  my  brain  I  carried  some 
vague  memory  of  George  Eliot  once  catching  this 
same  philosophizing  Spencer  fishing  with  a  com- 
posite fly,  and,  remarking  on  his  passion  for  gen- 
eralizations, declaring  that  he  even  fished  with  a 
generalization.  So  I  could  afford  to  laugh.  "Spen- 
cer's idea  of  a  tragedy,"  I  told  Dinky-Dunk,  "is 
a  deduction  killed  by  a  fact !"  And  again  I  smiled 
my  Mona-Lisa  smile.  "And  I'm  going  to  be  one 
of  the  facts !"  I  proudly  proclaimed. 

Dinky-Dunk,  after  thinking  this  over,  broke  into 
a  laugh.  "You  know,  Gee-Gee,"  he  solemnly  an- 
nounced, "there  are  times  when  you  seem  almost 
clever !"  But  I  wasn't  clever  in  this  case,  for  it  was 
hours  later  before  I  saw  the  trap  which  Dinky-Dunk 
had  laid  for  me ! 


316 


Monday  the  Sixteenth 

AiiL  day  Saturday  Olga  and  Dinky-Dunk  were 
off  in  the  chuck-wagon,  working  too  far  away  to 
come  home  for  dinner.  The  thought  of  them  being 
out  there,  side  by  side,  hung  over  me  like  a  cloud. 
I  remembered  how  he  had  absently  stared  at  the 
white  column  of  her  neck.  And  I  pictured  him 
stopping  in  his  work  and  studying  her  faded  blue 
cotton  waist  pulled  tight  across  the  line  of  that 
opulent  bust.  What  man  wouldn't  be  impressed 
by  such  bodily  magnificence,  such  lavish  and  un- 
dulating youth  and  strength?  And  there's  some- 
thing so  soft  and  diffused  about  those  ox-like  eyes 
of  hers !  You  do  not  think,  then,  of  her  eyes  being 
such  a  pale  blue,  any  more  than  you  could  stop 
to  accuse  summer  moonlight  of  not  being  ruddy. 
And  those  unruffled  blue  eyes  never  seem  to  see 
you;  they  rather  seem  to  bathe  you  in  a  gaze  as 
soft  and  impersonal  as  moonlight  itself. 
217 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

I  simply  couldn't  stand  it  any  more.  I  got 
on  Paddy  and  galloped  out  for  my  Dinky-Dunk, 
as  though  it  were  my  sudden  and  solemn  duty 
to  save  him  from  some  imminent  and  awful  catas- 
trophe. 

I  stopped  on  the  way,  to  watch  a  couple  of 
prairie-chickens  minuetting  through  the  turns  of 
their  vernal  courtships.  The  pompous  little  beg- 
gars with  puifed-out  wattles  and  neck  ruffs  were 
positively  doing  cancans  and  two-steps  along  the 
prairie  floor.  Love  was  in  the  air,  that  perfect 
spring  afternoon,  even  for  the  animal  world.  So 
instead  of  riding  openly  and  honestly  up  to  Dinky- 
Dunk  and  Olga,  I  kept  under  cover  as  much  as 
I  could  and  stalked  them,  as  though  I  had  been  a 
timber  wolf. 

Then  I  felt  thoroughly  and  unspeakably  ashamed 
of  myself,  for  I  caught  sight  of  Olga  high  on  her 
wagon,  like  a  Valkyr  on  a  cloud,  and  Dinky-Dunk 
hard  at  work  a  good  two  miles  away. 

He  was  a  little  startled  to  see  me  come  cantering 
KID  on  Paddy.  I  don't  know  whether  it  was  silly  or 
218 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

not,  but  I  told  him  straight  out  what  had  brought 
me.  He  hugged  me  hke  a  bear  and  then  sat  down 
on  the  prairie  and  laughed.  "With  that  cow?" 
he  cried-  And  I'm  sure  no  man  could  ever  call 
the  woman  he  loves  a  cow.  ...  I  believe  Dinky- 
Dunk  suspects  something.  He's  just  asked  me 
to  be  more  careful  about  riding  Paddy.  And  he's 
been  more  solemnly  kind,  lately.  But  I'll  never 
tell  him — never — never ! 


m9 


Tuesday  the  Twenty-fourth 

Percy  will  be  back  to-morrow.  It  will  be  a  dif- 
ferent looking  country  to  what  it  was  when  he 
left.  I've  been  staring  up  at  a  cobalt  sky,  and 
begin  to  understand  why  people  used  to  think 
Heaven  was  somewhere  up  in  the  midst  of  such 
celestial  blue.  And  on  the  prairie  the  sky  is  your 
£rst  and  last  friend.  Wasn't  it  Emerson  who  some- 
where said  that  the  firmament  was  the  daily  bread 
for  one's  eyes?  And  oh,  the  lovely,  greening  floor 
of  the  wheat  country  now!  Such  a  soft  yellow- 
^reen  glory  stretching  so  far  in  every  direction, 
growing  so  much  deeper  day  by  day!  And  the 
5un  and  space  and  clear  light  on  the  sky-line  and 
the  pillars  of  smoke  miles  away  and  the  wonderful, 
mysterious  promise  that  is  hanging  over  this  teem- 
ing, steaming,  shimmering,  abundant  broad  bosom 
of  earth!  It  thrills  me  in  a  way  I  can't  explain. 
By  night  and  day,  before  breakfast  and  after  sup- 
220 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

per,  the  talk  is  of  wheat,  wheat,  wheat,  until  I 
nearly  go  crazy.  I  complained  to  Dinky-Dunk  that 
he  was  dreaming  wheat,  living  wheat,  breathing 
wheat,  that  he  and  all  the  rest  of  the  world  seemed 
mad  about  wheat. 

"And  there's  just  one  other  thing  you  must  re- 
member. Lady  Bird,"  was  his  answer.  "All  the 
rsst  of  the  world  is  eating  wheat.  It  can't  live 
K^ithout  wheat.  And  I'd  rather  be  growing  the 
bread  that  feeds  the  hungry  than  getting  rich 
making  cordite  and  Krupp  guns !"  So  he's  risking 
everything  on  this  crop  of  his,  and  is  eternally 
figuring  and  planning  and  getting  ready  for  the 
grande  debacle.  He  says  it  will  be  like  a  battle. 
And  no  general  goes  into  a  battle  without  being 
prepared  for  it.  But  when  we  read  about  the  do- 
ings of  the  outside  world,  it  seems  like  reading 
of  happenings  that  have  taken  place  on  the  planet 
Mars.  We're  our  own  little  world  just  now,  self- 
contained,  rounded-out,  complete. 


%21 


Friday  the  Third 

Two  things  of  vast  importance  have  happened. 
Dinky-Dunk  has  packed  up  and  made  off  to  Ed- 
monton to  interview  some  railway  officials,  and 
Percy  is  back.  Dinky-Dunk  is  so  mysteriously 
silent  as  to  the  matter  of  his  trip  that  I'm  afraid 
he  is  worried  about  money  matters.  And  he  asked 
me  if  I'd  mind  keeping  the  household  expenses 
down  as  low  as  I  could,  without  actual  hardship, 
for  the  next  few  months. 

As  for  Percy,  he  seemed  a  little  constrained, 
but  looked  ever  so  much  better.  He  is  quite  sun- 
burned, likes  California  and  says  we  ought  to  have 
a  winter  bungalow  there  (and  Dinky-Dunk  just 
warning  me  to  save  on  the  pantry  pennies !)  He's 
brought  a  fastidious  little  old  English  woman  back 
with  him  as  a  housekeeper,  a  Mrs.  Watson,  and 
she  looks  both  capable  and  practical.  Notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  she  seems  to  have  stepped 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

right  out  of  Dickens,  and  carries  a  huge  Manx 
cat  about  with  her,  Percy  said  he  thought  they'd 
muddle  along  in  some  way.  Thoughtful  boy  that 
he  was,  he  brought  me  a  portmanteau  packed  full 
of  the  newer  novels  and  magazines,  and  a  two-pound 
jar  of  smoking  tobacco  for  Dinky-Dunk. 


^fS 


Thursday  the  Ninth 

A  Belasco  couldn't  have  more  carefully  stage- 
managed  the  first  meeting  between  Percy  and  Olga. 
I  felt  that  she  was  my  discovery,  and  I  wanted  to 
spring  her  on  him  at  the  right  moment,  and  in 
the  right  way.  I  wanted  to  get  the  Valkyr  on  a 
cloud  effect.  So  I  kept  Percy  in  the  house  on 
the  pretext  of  giving  him  a  cup  of  tea,  until  I 
should  hear  the  rumble  of  the  wagon  and  know 
that  Olga  was  swinging  home  with  her  team.  It 
so  happened,  when  I  heard  the  first  faint  far  thun- 
der of  that  homing  wagon,  that  Percy  was  sitting 
in  my  easy  chair,  with  a  cup  of  my  thinnest  china 
in  one  hand  and  a  copy  of  Walter  Pater's  Harms 
the  Epicurean  in  the  other.  We  had  been  speak- 
ing of  climate,  and  he  wanted  to  look  up  the  pas- 
sage where  Pater  said,  "one  always  dies  of  the 
cold" — ^which  I  consider  a  slur  on  the  Northwest! 

I  couldn't  help   realizing,  as  I  sat  staring  at 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

Percy,  at  the  thin,  over-sensitive  face,  and  the  high- 
arched,  over-refined  nose,  and  the  narrow,  stoop- 
ing, over-delicate  shoulders,  what  a  direct  opposite 
he  was  to  Olga,  in  every  way.  Instead  of  thin 
china  and  Pater  in  her  hand  at  that  very  moment, 
I  remembered  she'd  probably  have  a  f our-tined  fork 
or  a  mud-stained  fence  stretcher. 

I  went  to  the  door  and  looked  out.  At  the 
proper  moment  I  called  Percy.  Olga  was  stand- 
ing up  in  the  wagon-box,  swinging  about  one 
comer  of  the  corral.  She  stood  with  her  shoulders 
well  back,  for  her  weight  was  already  on  the  lines, 
to  pull  the  team  up.  Her  loose  blue  skirt  edge 
was  fluttering  in  the  wind,  but  at  the  front  was 
held  tight  against  her  legs,  like  the  drapery  of  the 
Peace  figure  in  the  Sherman  statue  in  the  Plaza. 
Across  that  Artemis-like  bosom  her  thin  waist  was 
stretched  tight.  She  had  no  hat  on,  and  her  pale 
gold  hair,  which  had  been  braided  and  twisted  up 
into  a  heavy  crown,  had  the  sheen  of  metal  on  it, 
in  the  later  afternoon  sun.  And  in  that  clear 
glow  of  light,  which  so  often  plays  mirage-like 
225 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

tricks  with  vision,  she  loomed  up  like  a  demi-god, 
or  a  she-Mercury  who  ought  to  have  had  little 
bicycle  wheels  attached  to  her  heels. 

Percy  is  never  demonstrative.  But  I  could  see 
that  he  was  more  than  impressed.    He  was  amazed. 

"My  word !"  he  said  very  quietly. 

"What  does  she  make  you  think  of?"  I  de- 
manded. 

Percy  put  down  his  teacup. 

"Don't  go  away,"  I  commanded,  "but  tell  me 
what  she  makes  you  think  of."  He  still  stood  star- 
ing at  her  with  puckered  up  eyes. 

"She's  like  band-music  going  by !"  he  proclaimed. 
"No,  she's  more  than  that;  she's  Wagner  on 
wheels,"  he  finally  said.  "No,  not  that !  A  Norse 
myth  in  dimity!" 

I  told  him  it  wasn't  dimity,  but  he  was  too  in- 
terested in  Olga  to  listen  to  me. 

Half  an  hour  later,  when  she  met  him,  she  was 

very  shy.     She  turned  an  adorable  pink,  and  then 

calmly  rebuttoned  the  two  top  buttons  of  her  waist, 

which  had  been  hanging  loose.    And  I  noticed  that 

S26 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

Percy  did  precisely  what  I  saw  Dinky-Dunk  once 
doing.  He  sat  staring  absently  yet  studiously  at 
the  milky  white  column  of  Olga's  neck!  And  I 
had  to  speak  to  him  twice,  before  he  even  woke  up 
to  the  fact  that  he  was  being  addressed  by  his 
hostess. 


22T 


Wednesday  the  Fifteenth 

Dinky-Dunk  is  back,  and  very  busy  again. 
During  the  day  I  scarcely  get  a  glimpse  of  him, 
except  at  meal-times.  I  have  a  steadily  growing 
sense  of  being  neglected,  but  I  know  how  a  worried 
man  hates  petulance.  The  really  important  thing 
is  that  Percy  is  giving  Olga  lessons  in  reading 
and  writing.  For,  although  a  Finn,  she  is  a  Ca- 
nadian Finn  from  almost  the  shadow  of  the  sub- 
Arctics,  and  has  had  little  chance  for  education. 
But  her  mind  is  not  obtuse. 

Yesterday  I  asked  Olga  what  she  thought  of 
Percival  Benson.  ''Ah  lak  heem,"  she  calmly  ad- 
mitted in  her  majestic,  monosyllabic  way.  "He 
is  a  fonny  leetle  man."  And  the  "fonny  leetle 
man"  who  isn't  really  little,  seems  to  like  Olga, 
odd  as  it  may  sound.  They  are  such  opposites, 
such  contradictions!  Percy  says  she's  Homeric. 
He  says  he  never  saw  eyes  that  were  so  limpid,  or 
^28 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

such  pools  of  peace  and  calm.  He  insists  on  the 
fact  that  she's  essentially  maternal,  as  maternal  as 
the  soil  over  which  she  walks,  as  Percy  put  it.  I 
told  him  what  Dinky-Dunk  had  once  told  me,  about 
Olga  killing  a  bull.  The  bull  was  a  vicious  brute 
that  had  attacked  her  father  and  knocked  him  down. 
He  was  striking  at  the  fallen  man  with  his  fore- 
paws  when  Olga  heard  his  cries.  She  promptly 
came  for  that  bull  with  a  pitchfork.  And  speak- 
ing of  Homer,  it  must  have  been  a  pretty  epical 
fcattle,  for  she  killed  the  bull  and  left  the  fork-tines 
eight  inches  in  his  body  while  she  picked  up  her 
father  and  carried  him  back  to  the  house.  And  I 
won't  even  kill  my  own  hens,  but  have  always  ap- 
pointed Olie  as  the  executioner. 


22^ 


'Friday  the  Seventeenth 

It  is  funny  to  see  Percy  teaching  Olga.  She 
watches  him  as  though  he  were  a  miracle  man.  Her 
dewy  red  lips  form  the  words  slowly,  and  the  full 
white  throat  utters  them  largely,  laboriously,  in- 
struments on  them,  and  in  some  perhaps  uncouth 
way  makes  them  lovely.  I  sit  with  my  sewing,  lis- 
tening. Sometimes  I  open  the  piano  and  play. 
But  I  feel  out  of  it.  I  seem  to  be  on  the  fringe  of 
things  that  are  momentous  only  to  other  people. 
Last  night,  when  Percy  said  he  thought  he'd  sell 
his  ranch,  Dinky-Dunk  looked  up  from  his  paper- 
littered  desk  and  told  him  to  hang  on  to  that  land 
like  a  leech.    But  he  didn't  explain  why. 


230 


Saturday  the  Nineteenth 

I  can't  even  remember  the  date.  But  I  kno-vr 
that  midsummer  is  here,  that  the  men  folks  are  sg 
busy  I  have  to  shift  for  myself,  and  that  the  talk 
IS  still  of  wheat,  and  how  it's  heading,  and  how 
the  dry  weather  of  the  last  few  weeks  will  affect  the 
length  of  the  straw.  Dinky-Dunk  is  making  des- 
perate efforts  to  get  men  to  cut  wild-hay.  He's 
bought  the  hay  rights  of  a  large  stretch  between 
some  sloughs  about  seven  miles  east  of  our  place. 
He  says  men  are  scarcer  than  hen's  teeth,  but  has 
the  promise  of  a  couple  of  cutthroats  who  were 
thrown  off  a  freight-train  near  Buckhorn.  Percy 
volunteered  to  help,  and  was  convinced  of  the  fact 
that  he  could  drive  a  mower.  Olie,  who  nurses  a 
vast  contempt  for  Percy,  and,  I  secretly  believe, 
rather  resents  his  attentions  to  Olga,  put  the  new 
team  of  colts  on  the  mower.  They  promptly  ran 
awaj  with  Percy,  who  came  within  an  ace  of  being 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

thrown  in  front  of  the  mower-knife,  which  would 
have  chopped  him  up  into  very  unscholarly  mince- 
meat. Olga  got  on  a  horse,  bareback,  and  rounded 
up  the  colts.  Then  she  cooed  about  poor  bruised 
Percy  and  tried  to  coax  him  to  come  to  the  house. 
But  Percy  said  he  was  going  to  drive  that  team, 
even  if  he  had  to  be  strapped  to  the  mower-seat. 
And,  oddly  enough,  he  did  "gat  them  beat,"  as  Olga 
expressed  it,  but  it  tired  him  out  and  wilted  his 
collar  and  the  sweat  was  running  down  his  face 
when  he  came  in  at  noon.  Olga  is  very  proud  of 
him.  But  she  announced  that  she'd  drive  that 
mower  herself,  and  sailed  into  Olie  for  giving  a 
tenderfoot  a  team  like  that  to  drive.  It  was  her 
first  outburst.  I  couldn't  understand  a  word  she 
said,  but  I  know  that  she  was  magnificent.  She 
looked  like  a  statue  of  Justice  that  had  suddenly 
jumped  off  its  pedestal  and  was  doing  its  best  to 
put  a  Daniel  Webster  out  of  business ! 


ftS2 


Friday  the  Twenty-eighth 

The  weather  is  still  very  dry.  But  Dinky-Dunk 
feels  sure  it  will  not  affect  his  crop.  He  says  the 
filaments  of  a  wheat-plant  will  go  almost  two  feet 
deep  in  search  for  moisture.  Yesterday  Percy  ap- 
peared in  a  flannel  shirt,  and  without  his  glasses, 
I  think  he  is  secretly  practising  calisthenics.  He 
said  he  was  going  to  cut  out  this  afternoon  tea,  be- 
cause it  doesn't  seem  to  fit  in  with  prairie  life.  I 
fancy  I  see  the  re-barbarianizing  influence  of  Olga 
at  work  on  Percival  Benson  Woodhouse.  Either 
Dinky-Dunk  or  Olie,  I  find,  has  hidden  my  saddle  \ 


sm 


Saturday  the  Twenty-ninth 

To-day  has  been  one  of  the  hottest  days  of  the 
year.  It  may  be  good  for  the  wheat,  but  I  can't 
say  that  it  seems  good  for  me.  All  day  long  I've 
been  fretting  for  far-away  things,  for  foolish  and 
impossible  things.  I  tried  reading  Keats,  but  that 
only  made  me  worse  than  ever.  I've  been  longing 
for  a  glimpse  of  the  Luxembourg  Gardens  in 
spring,  with  all  the  horse-chestnuts  in  bloom.  I've 
been  wondering  how  lovely  it  would  be  to  drift  into 
the  Blue  Grotto  at  Capri  and  see  the  azure  sea- 
water  drip  from  the  trailing  boat-oars.  I've  been 
burning  with  a  hunger  to  see  a  New  England  or- 
chard in  the  slanting  afternoon  sunlight  of  an  early 
June  afternoon.  The  hot  white  light  of  this  open 
country  makes  my  eyes  ache  and  seems  to  dry  my 
soul  up.  I  can't  help  thinking  of  cool  green  shad- 
ows, and  musky  little  valleys  of  gloom  with  a  brook 
purling  over  mossy  stones.  I  long  for  the  soleout 
234i 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

greenery  of  great  elms,  aisles  and  aisles  of  cathe- 
dral-like gloom  and  leaf-filtered  sunlight.  I'd  love 
to  hear  an  English  cuckoo  again,  and  feel  the  soft 
mild  sea-air  that  blows  up  through  Louis's  dear 
little  Devonshire  garden.     But  what's  the  use ! 

I  went  to  the  piano  and  pounded  out  Kennst  Dw 
Das  Land  with  all  my  soul,  and  I  imagine  it  did 
me  good.  It  at  least  bombarded  the  silence  out  of 
Casa  Grande.  The  noise  of  life  is  so  far  away 
from  you  on  the  prairie !  It  is  not  utterly  silent, 
just  that  dream}'^  and  disembodied  sigh  of  wind  and 
grass  against  which  a  human  call  targets  like  a 
leaden  bullet  against  metal.  It  is  almost  worse  than 
silence. 


236 


'Sunday  the  Thirtieth 

My  mood  is  over.  Early,  early  this  morning  I 
slipped  out  of  bed  and  watched  day  break.  I  saw 
the  first  faint  orange  rim  along  the  limitless  sky- 
line, and  then  the  pearly  pink  above  it,  and  all  the 
sweet  dimness  and  softness  and  mystery  of  God's 
hand  pulling  the  curtains  of  morning  apart.  And 
then  the  rioting  orchestras  of  color  struck  up,  and 
I  leaned  out  of  the  window  bathed  in  glory  as  the 
golden  disk  of  the  sun  showed  over  the  dewy  prairie- 
edge.  Oh,  the  grandeur  of  it!  And  oh,  the  God- 
given  freshness  of  that  pellucid  air!  I  love  raj 
land !    I  love  it ! 


23g 


Tuesday  the  First 

I  HAVE  married  a  man!  My  Dinky-Dunk  is  not 
a  softy.  I  had  that  proved  to  me  yesterday,  when 
I  put  Paddy  in  the  buckboard  and  drove  out  to 
where  the  men  were  working  in  the  hay.  I  was  tak- 
ing their  dinner  out  to  them,  neatly  packed  in  the 
chuck-box.  One  of  the  new  men,  who'd  been  hired 
for  the  rush,  had  been  overworking  his  team.  The 
brute  had  been  prodding  them  with  a  pitchfork,  in- 
stead of  using  a  whip.  Dinky-Dunk  saw  the  marks, 
and  noticed  one  of  the  horses  bleeding.  But  he 
didn't  interfere  until  he  caught  the  man  in  the  act 
of  jabbing  the  tines  into  Maid  Marian's  flank. 
Then  he  jumped  for  him,  just  as  I  drove  up.  He 
cursed  that  man,  cursed  and  damned  him  most 
dreadfully  and  pulled  him  down  off  the  hay-rack. 
Then  they  fought. 

They  fought  like  two  wildcats.  Dinky-Dunk's 
nose  bled  and  his  lip  was  cut.  But  he  knocked  the 
237 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

other  man  flat,  and  when  he  tried  to  get  up  he 
knocked  him  again.  It  seemed  cruel ;  it  was  revolt- 
ing. But  something  in  me  rejoiced  and  exulted  as 
I  saw  that  hulk  of  an  animal  thresh  and  stagger 
about  the  hay-stubble.  I  tried  to  wipe  the  blood 
away  from  Dinky-Dunk's  nose.  But  he  pushed  me 
back  and  said  this  was  no  place  for  a  woman.  I 
had  no  place  in  his  universe,  at  that  particular 
time.  But  Dinky-Dunk  can  fight,  if  he  has  to. 
He's  sa  magerf ul  a  mon !  He's  afraid  of  nothing. 
But  that  was  nearly  a  costly  victory.  Both  the 
new  men  of  course  threw  up  their  jobs,  then  and 
there.  Dinky-Dunk  paid  them  oif,  on  the  spot, 
and  they  started  off  across  the  open  prairie,  with- 
out even  waiting  for  their  meal.  Dinky-Dunk,  as 
we  sat  down  on  the  dry  grass  and  ate  together,  said 
it  was  a  good  riddance,  and  he  was  just  saying  I 
could  only  have  the  left-hand  side  of  his  mouth  to 
kiss  for  the  next  week  when  he  suddenly  dropped 
his  piece  of  custard-pie,  stood  up  and  stared  toward 
the  east.  I  did  the  same,  wondering  what  had  hap- 
pened. 

238 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

I  could  see  a  long  thin  slanting  column  of  smoke 
driving  across  the  hot  noonday  air.  Then  my  heart 
stopped  beating.    It  was  the  prairie  on  "fire, 

I  had  heard  a  great  deal  about  fire-guards  and 
fire-guarding,  three  rows  about  crops  and  ten  about 
buildings ;  and  I  knew  that  Olie  hadn't  yet  finished 
turning  all  those  essential  furrows.  And  if  that 
column  of  smoke,  which  was  swinging  up  through 
the  silvery  haze  where  the  indigo  vault  of  heaven 
melted  into  the  dusty  whiteness  of  the  parched 
grasslands,  had  come  from  the  mouth  of  a  siege- 
gun  which  was  cannonading  us  where  we  stood,  it 
couldn't  have  more  completely  chilled  my  blood. 
For  I  knew  that  east  wind  would  carry  the  line  of 
fire  crackling  across  the  prairie  floor  to  Dinky- 
Dunk's  wheat,  to  the  stables  and  out-buildings,  to 
Casa  Grande  itself,  and  all  our  scheming  and  plan- 
ning and  toiling  and  moiling  would  go  up  in  one 
yellow  puff  of  smoke.  And  once  under  way,  noth- 
ing could  stop  that  widening  river  of  flame. 

It  was  Dinky-Dunk  who  jumped  to  life  as  though 
he  had  indeed  been  cannonaded.  In  one  bound  he 
^39 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

was  at  the  buckboard  and  was  snatching  out  the 
horse-blanket  that  lay  folded  up  under  the  seat. 
Then  he  unsnapped  the  reins  from  Paddy's  bridle, 
snapping  them  on  the  blanket,  one  to  the  buckle 
and  the  other  to  the  strap-end.  In  another  minute 
he  had  the  hobble  off  Paddy  and  had  swung  me  up 
on  that  astonished  pinto's  back.  The  next  minute 
he  himself  was  on  Maid  Marian,  poking  one  end  of 
the  long  rein  into  my  hand  and  telling  me  to  keep 
up  with  him. 

We  rode  like  mad.  I  scarcely  understood  what 
it  meant,  at  the  time,  but  I  at  least  kept  up  with 
him.  We  went  floundering  through  one  end  of  a 
slough  until  the  blanket  was  wet  and  heavy  and  I 
could  hardly  hold  it.  But  I  hung  on  for  dear  life. 
Then  we  swung  off  across  the  dry  grass  toward  that 
advancing  semicircle  of  fire,  as  far  apart  as  the 
taut  reins  would  let  us  ride.  Dinky-Dunk  took  the 
windward  side.  Then  on  we  rushed,  along  that 
wavering  frontier  of  flame,  neck  to  neck,  dragging 
the  wet  blanket  along  its  orange-tinted  crest,  flat- 
tening it  down  and  wiping  it  out  as  we  went.  We 
240 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

made  the  full  circle,  panting ;  saw  where  the  flames 
had  broken  out  again,  and  swung  back  with  our 
dragging  blanket.  But  when  one  side  was  con- 
quered another  side  would  revive,  and  off  we'd  have 
to  go  again,  until  my  arm  felt  as  though  it  were 
going  to  be  pulled  out  of  its  socket. 

But  we  won  that  fight,  in  the  end.  I  slipped 
down  off  Paddy's  back  and  lay  full  length  on  the 
sod,  weak,  shaking,  wondering  why  the  solid  ground 
was  rocking  slowly  from  side  to  side  like  a  boat. 
But  Dinky-Dunk  didn't  even  observe  me.  He  was 
fighting  out  the  last  patch  of  fire,  on  foot. 

When  he  came  over  to  where  I  was  waiting  for 
him  he  was  as  sooty  and  black  as  a  boiler-maker. 
He  dropped  down  beside  me,  breathing  hard.  We 
sat  there  holding  each  other's  hand,  for  several 
minutes,  in  utter  silence.  Then  he  said,  rather 
thickly:  "Are  you  all  right.?"  And  I  told  him 
that  of  course  I  was  all  right.  Then  he  said,  with- 
out looking  at  me,  "I  forgot !"  Then  he  got  Paddy 
and  patched  up  the  harness  and  took  me  home  in 
the  buckboard. 

241 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

But  aU  the  rest  of  the  day  he  hung  about  the 
shack,  as  solemn  as  an  owl.  And  once  in  the  night  he 
got  up  and  lighted  the  lamp  and  came  over  and 
studied  mj  face.  I  blinked  up  at  him  sleepily,  for  I 
was  dog-tired  and  had  been  dreaming  that  we  were 
back  in  Paris  at  the  Bal  des  Quatz  Arts  and  were 
about  to  finish  up  with  an  early  breakfast  at  the 
Madrid.  He  looked  so  funny  with  his  rumpled  up 
hair  and  his  faded  pajamas  that  I  couldn't  help 
laughing  a  little  as  he  blew  out  the  light  and  got 
back  into  bed. 

"Dinky-Dunk,"  I  said,  as  I  turned  over  my  pil- 
low and  got  comfy  again,  "wouldn't  it  have  been 
hell  if  aU  our  wheat  had  been  burned  up?"  I  for- 
get what  Duncan  said,  for  in  two  minutes  I  was 
asleep  again. 


Monday  the  Seventn 

The  dry  speTl  has  been  broken,  and  broken  with  a 
vengeance.  One  gets  pretty  well  used  to  high  winds, 
in  the  West.  There  used  to  be  days  at  a  time 
when  that  unending  high  wind  would  make  me  think 
something  was  going  to  happen,  filling  me  with  a 
vague  sense  of  impending  calamity  and  making  me 
imagine  a  big  storm  was  going  to  blow  up  and  wipe 
Casa  Grande  and  its  little  coterie  off  the  map.  But 
we've  had  a  real  wind-storm,  this  time,  with  rain 
and  hail.  Dinky-Dunk's  wheat  looks  sadly  draggled 
out  and  beaten  down,  but  he  says  there  wasn't 
enough  hail  to  hurt  anything;  that  the  straw  will 
straighten  up  again,  and  that  this  downpour  was 
just  what  he  wanted.  Early  in  the  afternoon,  on 
looking  out  the  shack  door,  I  saw  a  tangle  of  clouds 
on  the  sky-line.  They  seemed  twisted  up  like  a 
skein  of  wool  a  kitten  had  been  playing  with.  Then 
they  seemed  to  marshal  themselves  into  one  solid 
243 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

line  and  sweep  up  over  the  sky,  getting  blacker  and 
blacker  as  they  came.  Olga  ran  in  with  her  yellow 
hair  flying,  slamming  and  bolting  the  stable- 
doors,  locking  the  chicken-coop,  and  calling  out  for 
me  to  get  my  clothes  off  the  line  or  they'd  be  blown 
to  pieces.  Even  then  I  could  feel  the  wind.  It 
whipped  my  own  hair  loose,  and  flattened  my  skirt 
against  my  body,  and  I  had  to  lean  forward  to 
make  any  advance  against  it. 

By  this  time  the  black  army  of  the  heavens  had 
rolled  up  overhead  and  a  few  big  frog-like  drops 
of  rain  began  to  fall,  throwing  up  little  clouds  of 
dust,  as  a  rifle  bullet  might.  I  trundled  out  a 
couple  of  tubs,  in  the  hope  of  catching  a  little  soft 
water.  It  wasn't  until  later  that  I  realized  the 
meaning  of  Olga's  mild  stare  of  reproof.  For  the 
next  moment  the  downpour  came,  and  with  it  the 
wind.  And  such  wind!  There  had  been  nothing 
to  stop  its  sweep,  of  course,  for  hundreds  and  hun- 
dreds of  miles,  and  it  hit  us  the  same  as  a  hurricane 
at  sea  hits  a  liner.  The  shack  shook  with  the  force 
of  it.  My  two  washtubs  went  bounding  and  careen- 
244 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

Jtig  off  across  the  landscape,  the  chicken-coop  went 
over  like  a  nine-pin,  and  the  air  was  filled  with  bits 
of  flying  timber.  Olga's  wagon,  with  the  hay-rack 
on  top  of  it,  moved  solemnly  and  ponderously  across 
the  barnyard  and  crashed  into  the  corral,  propelled 
by  no  power  but  that  of  the  wind.  My  sweet-pea 
hedges  were  torn  from  their  wires,  and  an  armful 
of  hay  came  smack  against  the  shack-window  and 
was  held  there  by  the  wind,  darkening  the  room 
more  than  ever. 

Then  the  storm  blew  itself  out,  though  it  poured 
for  two  or  three  hours  afterward.  And  all  the 
while,  although  I  exulted  in  that  play  of  elemental 
force,  I  was  worrying  about  my  Dinky-Dunk,  who 
was  away  for  the  day,  doing  what  he  could  to  ar- 
range for  some  harvest  hands,  when  the  time  for 
cutting  came.  For  the  wheat,  it  seems,  ripens  all  at 
once,  and  then  the  grand  rush  begins.  If  it  isn't 
cut  the  moment  it's  ripe,  the  grain  shells  out,  and 
that  means  loss.  Olga  has  been  saying  that  the 
wheat  on  the  Cummins  section  will  easily  run  forty 
jushels  to  the  acre  and  over.  It  will  also  gradt 
245 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

high,  whatever  that  means.  There  are  six  hundred 
and  forty  acres  of  it  in  that  section,  and  I've  just 
figured  out  that  this  means  a  little  over  twenty-five 
thousand  bushels  of  grain.  Our  other  piece  on  the 
home  ranch  is  a  larger  tract,  but  a  little  lighter  in 
crop.  That  wheat  is  just  beginning  to  turn  from 
green  to  the  palest  of  yellow.  And  it  has  a  good 
show,  Olga  says,  if  frost  will  only  keep  off  and  no 
hail  comes.  Our  one  occupation,  for  the  next  few 
weeks,  will  be  watching  the  weather. 


me 


Sunday  the  Thirteenth 

Percy  and  Mrs.  Watson  drove  over  to  see  how 
we'd  all  weathered  the  storm.  They  found  the 
chicken-coop  once  more  right  side  up,  and  every- 
thing ship-shape.  Percy  promptly  asked  where 
Olga  was.  I  pointed  her  out  to  him,  breast-high  in 
the  growing  wheat.  She  looked  like  Ceres,  in  her 
big,  new,  loose-fitting  blue  waist,  with  the  noonday 
sun  on  her  yellow-gold  head  and  her  mild  rumina- 
tive eyes  with  their  misted  sky-line  effect.  She  al- 
ways seems  to  fit  into  the  landscape  here.  I  suppose 
it's  because  she's  a  born  daughter  of  the  soil.  And 
a  sea  of  wheat  makes  a  perfect  frame  for  that  mas- 
sive, benignant  figure  of  hers. 

I  looked  at  Percy,  at  thin-nosed,  unpractical 
Percy,  with  all  his  finicky  sensibilities,  with  his  high 
fastidious  reticences,  with  his  effete,  inbred  meager- 
ness  of  bone  and  sinew,  with  his  distinguished  pride 
9f  distinguished  race  rather  running  to  seed.     Anc 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

I  stood  marveling  at  the  wisdom  of  old  Mother  Na- 
ture, who  was  so  plainly  propelling  him  toward  this 
revitalizing,  revivifying,  reanimalizing,  redeeming 
type  which  his  pale  austerities  of  spirit  could  never 
quite  neutralize.  Even  Dinky-Dunk  has  noticed 
what  is  taking  place.  He  saw  them  standing  side 
by  side  in  the  grain.  When  he  came  in  he  pointed 
them  out  to  me,  and  merely  said,  "Hermann  und 
Dorothea!"  But  I  remembered  my  Goethe  well 
snough  to  understand. 


948 


Monday  the  Twenty-eighth 

I  WOKE  Dinky-Dunk  up  last  night  crying  besidd 
him  in  bed.  I  just  got  to  thinking  about  things 
again,  how  far  away  we  were  from  everything,  how 
hard  it  would  be  to  get  help  if  we  needed  it,  and 
how  much  I'd  give  if  I  only  had  you,  Matilda  Anne, 
for  the  next  few  weeks.  ...  I  got  up  and  went 
to  the  window  and  looked  out.  The  moon  was  big 
and  yellow,  like  a  cheese.  And  the  midnight  prairie 
itself  seemed  so  big  and  wide  and  lonely,  and  I 
seemed  such  a  tiny  speck  on  its  face,  so  far  away 
from  every  one,  from  God  himself,  that  the  courage 
went  out  of  my  body  like  the  air  out  of  a  tire. 
Dinky-Dunk  was  right;  it  is  hfe  that  is  taming 
me. 

I  stood  at  the  window  praying,  and  then  1 
slipped  back  into  bed.  Dinky-Dunk  works  so  hard 
and  gets  so  tired  that  it  would  take  a  Chinese  devil- 
gong  to  waken  him,  once  he's  asleep.  He  did  not 
^49 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE  v 

stir  when  I  crept  back  into  bed.  And  that,  as  I  lay 
there  wide  awake,  made  me  feel  that  even  my  own 
husband  had  betrayed  me.  And  I  bawled.  I  must 
Jiave  shaken  the  bed,  for  Dinky-Dunk  finally  did 
'wake  up.  I  couldn't  tell  him  what  was  the  matter. 
1  blubbered  out  that  I  only  wanted  him  to  hold  me. 
He  took  me  in  his  arms  and  kissed  my  wet  eyelids, 
hugging  me  up  close  to  him,  until  I  got  quieter. 
Then  I  fell  asleep.  But  poor  Dinky-Dunk  was 
awake  when  I  opened  my  eyes  about  four,  and  had 
been  that  way  for  hours.  He  was  afraid  of  dis- 
turbing me  by  taking  his  arm  from  under  my  head. 
To-day  he  looks  tired  and  dark  around  the  eyes. 
But  he  was  up  and  oif  early.  There  is  so  much  to 
be  done  these  days !  He  is  putting  up  a  grub-tent 
and  a  rough  sleeping-shack  for  the  harvest  "hands," 
so  that  I  won't  be  bothered  with  a  lot  of  rough  men 
about  the  house  here.  I'm  afraid  I'm  an  encum- 
brance, when  I  should  be  helping.  But  they  seem 
to  hQ  taking  everything  out  of  my  hands. 


25t 


Saturday  the  Second 

I  LOVE  to  watch  the  wheat,  now  that  it's  reallj 
turning.  It  waves  like  a  sea  and  stretches  off  into 
the  distance  as  far  as  the  eye  can  follow  it.  It's  as 
high  as  my  waist,  and  sometimes  it  moves  up  and 
down  like  a  slowly  breathing  breast.  When  the  sun 
is  low  it  turns  a  pure  Roman  gold,  and  makes  my 
eyes  ache.  But  I  love  it.  It  strikes  me  as  being 
glorious,  and  at  the  same  time  pathetic^ — ^I  scarcely 
know  why.  I  can't  analyze  my  feelings.  But  the 
prairie  brings  a  great  peace  to  my  soul.  It  is  so 
rich,  so  maternal,  so  generous.  It  seems  to  brood 
under  a  passion  to  give,  to  yield  up,  to  surrender 
all  that  is  asked  of  it.  And  it  is  so  tranquil.  It 
seems  like  a  bosom  breathed  on  by  the  breath  <^ 
God. 


»51 


Wednesday  the  Sixth 

It  is  nearly  a  year,  now,  since  I  first  came  ^6 
Casa  Grande.  I  can  scarcely  believe  it.  The  nights 
are  getting  very  cool  again  and  any  time  now  there 
might  be  a  heavy  frost.  If  it  should  freeze  this 
next  week  or  two  I  think  my  Dinky-Dunk  would 
just  curl  up  and  die.  Poor  boy,  he's  working  so 
hard !  I  pray  for  that  crop  every  night.  I  worry 
about  it.  Last  night  I  dreamt  it  was  burnt  up  in 
a  prairie-fire  and  woke  up  screaming  for  wet  blan- 
kets. Dinky-Dunk  had  to  hold  me  until  I  got  quiet 
again.  I  asked  him  if  he  loved  me,  now  that  I  was 
getting  old  and  ugly.  He  said  I  was  the  most  beau- 
tiful thing  God  ever  made  and  that  he  loved  me  in 
a  deeper  and  nobler  way  than  he  did  a  year  ago. 
Then  I  asked  him  if  he'd  ever  get  married  again, 
if  I  should  die.  He  called  me  silly  and  said  I  was 
going  to  live  to  be  eighty,  and  that  a  gasoline-trac- 
tor couldn't  kill  me.  But  he  promised  I'd  be  ^ 
253 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

only  one,  whatever  happened.  And  I  believe  him. 
I  know  Dinky-Dunk  would  go  in  black  for  a  solid 
year,  if  I  should  die,  and  he'd  never,  never  marry 
Jigain,  for  he's  the  sort  of  Old  Sobersides  who  can 
only  love  one  woman  in  one  lifetime.  And  I'm  the 
woman,  glory  be  I 


ms 


Tuesday  the  Twelfth 

Harvest  time  is  here.  The  stage  is  cleared,  and 
the  last  and  great  act  of  the  drama  now  begins. 
It's  a  drama  with  a  stage  a  thousand  miles  wide.  I 
can  hear  through  the  open  windows  the  rattle  of  the 
self-binders.  Olga  is  driving  one,  like  a  tawny 
Boadicea  up  on  her  chariot.  She  said  she  never  saw 
such  heads  of  wheat.  This  is  the  first  day's  cutting, 
but  those  flapping  canvas  belts  and  those  tireless 
arms  of  wood  and  iron  won't  have  one-tenth  of 
Dinky-Dunk's  crop  tied  up  by  midnight.  It  is  very 
cold,  and  Olie  has  lugubriously  announced  that  it's 
sure  going  to  freeze.  So  three  times  I've  gone  out 
to  look  at  the  thermometer  and  three  times  I've  said 
my  solemn  little  prayer:  "Dear  God,  please  don't 
freeze  poor  Dinky-Dunk's  wheat!"  And  the  Lord 
heard  that  prayer,  for  a  Chinook  came  about  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning  and  the  mercury  slowly  but 
©t«adily  rose. 

'   254 


Thursday  the  Fourteenth 

I  HAD  a  great  deal  to  talk  about  to-day.  But  I 
can't  write  much.  .  .  .  I'm  afraid.  I  dreads 
being  alone.  I  wish  I'd  been  a  better  wife  to  my 
poor  old  gold-bricked  Dinky-Dunk!  But  we  are 
what  we  are,  character-kinks  and  all.  So  when 
he  understands,  perhaps  he'll  forgive  me.  I'm 
like  a  cottontail  in  the  middle  of  a  wheat-patch 
with  the  binders  going  round  and  round  and  every 
swathe  cutting  away  a  little  more  of  my  covering. 
And  there  can't  be  much  more  hiding  away  with 
my  secret.  But  I  shall  never  openly  speak  of  it. 
The  binder  can  cut  off  my  feet  first,  the  same  as 
Olie's  did  with  that  mother-rabbit  which  stood  trem- 
bling over  her  nest  of  young.  Why  must  life  some- 
times be  so  ruthlessly  tragic?  And  why,  oh,  why, 
are  women  sometimes  so  absurd?  And  why  should  I 
be  afraid  of  what  every  woman  who  would  justify 
her  womanhood  must  face?  Still,  I'm  afraid  1 
255 


Wednesday  the  Fifth 

Three  long  weeks  since  those  last  words  were 
written.  And  what  shall  I  say,  or  how  shall  I 
begin  ? 

In  the  first  place,  everything  seemed  gray.  The 
bed  was  gray,  my  own  arms  were  gray,  the  walls 
looked  gray,  the  window-glass  was  gray,  and  even 
Dinky-Dunk's  face  was  gray.  I  didn't  want  to 
move,  for  a  long  time.  Then  I  got  the  strength  to 
tell  Mrs.  Watson  that  I  wanted  to  speak  to  my  hus- 
band. She  was  wrapping  something  up  in  soft 
flannel  and  purring  over  it  quite  proudly  and  call- 
ing it  a  blessed  little  lamb.  When  poor  pale-faced 
Dinky-Dunk  bent  over  the  bed  I  asked  him  if  it  had 
a  receding  chin,  or  if  it  had  a  nose  like  Olie's.  And 
he  said  it  had  neither,  that  it  was  a  king  of  a  boy 
and  could  holler  like  a  good  one. 

Then  I  told  Dinky-Dunk  what  had  been  in  my 
secret  soul,  for  so  many  months.  Uncle  Carlton  had 
S56 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

€1  receding  chin,  a  boneless,  dew-lappy  sort  of  chin 
I'd  always  hated,  and  I'd  been  afraid  it  might  kind 
of  skip-and-carry  one  and  fasten  itself  on  my  inno- 
cent offspring.  Then,  later  on,  I'd  been  afraid  of 
die's  frozen  nose,  with  the  split  down  the  center. 
And  all  the  while  I  kept  remembering  what  the  Mor- 
leys'  old  colored  nurse  had  said  to  me  when  I  was  a 
schoolgirl,  a  girl  of  only  seventeen,  spending  that 
first  vacation  of  mine  in  Virginia:  "Lawdy,  chile, 
yuh  ain't  no  bigger'n  a  minit !  Don't  yuh  nebber 
hab  no  baby,  chile !" 

Isn't  it  funny  how  those  foolish  old  things  stick 
in  a  woman's  memory?  For  I've  had  my  baby  and 
I'm  still  alive,  and  although  I  sometimes  wanted  a 
girl,  Dinky-Dunk  is  so  ridiculously  proud  and 
happy  seeing  it's  a  boy  that  I  don't  much  care. 
But  I'm  going  to  get  well  and  strong  in  a  few  more 
days,  and  here  against  my  breast  I'm  holding  the 
God-love-itest  little  lump  of  pulsing  manhood,  the 
darlingest,  solemnest,  placidest,  pinkest  hope  of  the 
white  race  that  ever  made  Hf e  full  and  perfect  for  a 
foolish  mother. 

^57 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

The  doctor  who  finally  got  here — when  both 
Olga  and  Mrs.  Dixon  agreed  that  he  couldn't  pos- 
sibly do  a  bit  of  good — announced  that  I  had  come 
through  it  all  like  the  true  Prairie  Woman  that  I 
was.  Then  he  somewhat  pompously  and  redun- 
dantly explained  that  I  was  a  highly  organized  indi- 
yidual,  "a  bit  high-strung,"  as  Mrs.  Dixon  put  it. 
I  smiled  into  the  pillow  when  he  turned  to  my  anx- 
ious-eyed Dinky-Dunk  and  condoningly  enlarged  on 
the  fact  that  there  was  nothing  abnormal  about  a 
Toman  like  me  being — well,  rather  abnormal  as  ta 
temper  and  nerves  during  the  last  few  months.  But 
Dinky-Dunk  cut  him  short. 

"On  the  contrary,  sir ;  she's  been  wonderful,  sim- 
ply wonderful!"  Dinky-Dunk  stoutly  declared. 
Then  he  reached  for  my  hand  under  the  coverlet 
"She's  been  an  angel !" 

I  squeezed  the  hand  that  held  mine.  Then  I 
iooked  at  the  doctor,  who  had  turned  away  to  give 
bome  orders  to  Olga. 

"Doctor,"  I  quite  as  stoutly  declared,  "I've  been  a 
perfect  devil,  and  this  dear  old  liar  knows  it !"  But 
258 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

our  doctor  was  too  busy  to  pay  much  attention  to 
what  I  was  saying.  He  merely  murmured  that  it 
was  all  normal,  quite  normal,  under  the  circum- 
stances. So,  after  all,  I'm  just  an  ordinary,  every- 
day woman !  But  the  man  of  medicine  has  ordered 
me  to  stay  in  bed  for  twelve  days — which  Olga  re- 
gards as  unspeakably  preposterous,  since  one  day, 
she  proudly  announced,  was  all  her  mother  ever 
asked  for.  Which  shows  the  disadvantages  of  be- 
ing too  civilized ! 


f59 


Sunday  the  Ninth 

Pm  day  by  day  getting  stronger,  though  I'm  a 
lady  of  luxury  and  lie  in  bed  until  ten  every  morn- 
ing. To-day  when  I  was  sitting  up  to  eat  break- 
fast, with  my  hair  braided  in  two  tails  and  a  pink 
and  white  hug-me-tight  over  my  nightie,  Dinky- 
Dunk  came  in  and  sat  by  the  bed.  He  tried  to  soft- 
soap  me  by  saying  he'd  be  mighty  glad  when  I  was 
running  things  again  so  he  could  get  something  fit 
to  eat.  Olga,  he  admitted,  was  all  right,  but  she 
hadn't  the  touch  of  his  Gee-Gee.  He  confessed 
that  for  nearly  a  month  now  the  house  had  been  a 
damned  gynocracy  and  he  was  getting  tired  of  be- 
ing bossed  around  by  a  couple  of  women.  Mlo  pic- 
cino  no  longer  looks  like  a  littered  whelp  of  the 
animal  world,  as  he  did  at  first.  His  wrinkled  little 
face  and  his  close-shut  eyes  used  to  make  me  think 
of  a  little  old  man,  with  all  the  wisdom  of  the  ages 
shut  up  in  his  tiny  body.  And  it  is  such  a  knowing 
260 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

Kttle  body,  with  all  its  stored-up  instincts  and 
guardian  appetites!  My  little  tenor  robusto,  how 
he  can  sing  when  he's  hungry!  Last  night  I  sat 
up  in  bed,  listening  for  my  son's — ^Dinky-Dink's— 
breathing.  At  first  I  thought  he  might  be  dead,  he 
was  so  quiet.  Then  I  heard  his  lips  move  in  the 
rhapsodic  deglutition  of  babyland  dreams.  "Dinky- 
Dunk,"  I  demanded,  "what  would  we  do  if  Babe 
should  die  ?"  And  I  shook  him  to  make  him  answer. 
He  stared  up  at  me  with  a  sleepy  eye.  "That 
whale.?"  he  commented  as  he  blinked  contentedly 
down  at  his  offspring  and  then  turned  over  and  went 
to  sleep.  But  I  slipped  a  hand  in  under  little 
Dinky-Dink's  body,  and  found  it  as  warm  as  a  nest- 
ing bird. 


mi 


'Monday  the  Tenth 

I  NOTICED  that  Dinky-Dunk  had  not  been  smok° 
ing  lately,  so  i  asked  Him  what  had  become  of  the 
rest  of  his  cigars.  He  admitted  that  he  had  given 
them  to  Olie.  "When  ?"  I  asked.  And  Dinky-Dunk 
colored  up  as  he  answered,  rather  casually,  "Oh, 
the  day  Buddy  Boy  was  bom!"  How  men  merge 
down  into  the  conventional  in  their  more  epochal 
moments ! 

The  second  day  after  my  baby's  birth  Olga 
rather  took  my  breath  away  by  carrying  in  as  neat 
a  little  wooden  cradle  as  any  prince  of  the  royal 
blood  would  care  to  lie  in.  Olie  had  made  it.  He 
had  worked  on  it  during  his  spare  hours  in  the  eve- 
ning, and  even  Dinky-Dunk  hadn't  known.  I  made 
Olga  hold  it  up  at  the  foot  of  the  bed  so  I  could  see 
it  better.  It  had  been  scroll-sawed  and  sand-pa- 
yered  and  polished  like  any  factory-made  baby-bed, 
and  my  faithful  old  Olie  had  even  attempted  some 
262 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

hand-carving  along  the  rockers  and  the  head-board. 
But  as  I  looked  at  it  I  realized  that  it  must  have 
taken  weeks  and  weeks  to  make.  And  that  gave 
me  an  odd  little  earthquaky  feeling  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  midriff,  for  I  knew  then  that  my  secret 
had  been  no  secret  at  all.  Dinky-Dunk,  by  the  way, 
has  just  announced  that  we're  to  have  a  touring- 
ear.    He  says  I've  earned  it  1 


26S 


Tuesday  the  Eleventh 

Yesteeday  was  so  warm  that  I  sat  out  in  the 
sun  and  took  an  ozone-bath.  I  sat  there,  staring 
down  at  my  boy,  realizing  that  I  was  a  mother.  My 
boy — ^bone  of  my  bone  and  flesh  of  my  flesh !  It's 
so  hard  to  believe !  And  now  I  am  one  of  the  mystic 
chain,  and  no  longer  the  idle  hnk.  I  am  a  mother. 
And  I'd  give  an  arm  if  you  and  Chinkie  and  Schem- 
ing-Jack  could  see  my  boy,  at  this  moment.  He's 
like  a  rose-leaf  and  he's  got  six  dimples,  not  count- 
ing his  hands  and  feet — for  I've  found  and  kissed 
'em  all — on  different  parts  of  his  blessed  little  body. 
Dinky-Dunk  came  back  from  Buckhorn  yesterday 
fv^ith  a  lot  of  the  f oolishest  things  you  ever  clapped 
eyes  on — a  big  cloth  elephant  that  grunts  when 
you  pull  its  tail,  a  musical  spinning-top,  a  high- 
chair,  and  a  projecting  lantern.  They're  foi 
Dinky-Dink,  of  course.  But  it  will  be  a  week  o> 
\wo  before  he  can  manipulate  the  lantern ! 
264 


Wednesday  the  Thirteenth 

Dinky-Dunk  has  taken  Mrs.  Dixon  home  and 
come  back  with  a  brand-new  "hand,"  which,  of 
course,  is  prairie-land  synecdoche  for  a  new  hired 
man.  His  name  is  Terry  Dillon,  and  as  the  name 
might  lead  you  to  imagine,  he's  about  as  Irish  as 
Paddy's  pig.  He  is  blessed  with  a  potato-lip,  a  but- 
termilk brogue,  and  a  nose  which,  if  he  follows  it 
faithfully,  will  some  day  lead  him  straight  to 
Heaven.  But  Terry,  Dinky-Dunk  tells  me,  is  a 
steady  worker  and  a  good  man  with  horses,  and 
that  of  course  rounds  him  out  as  a  paragon  in  the 
eyes  of  my  slave-driving  lord  and  master.  I  asked 
where  Terry  came  from.  Dinky-Dunk,  with  rather 
a  grim  smile,  acknowledged  that  he'd  been  working 
for  Percy.  < 

Terry,  it  seems,  has  no  particular  love  for  an 
Englishman.    And  Percy  had  affronted  his  haughty 
Irish  spirit  with  certain  ideas  of  caste  which  can't 
^65 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

be  Imported  into  the  Canadian  West,  where  the 
hired  man  is  every  whit  as  good  as  his  master — as 
that  master  will  tragically  soon  find  out  if  he  tries 
to  make  his  help  eat  at  second  table !  At  any  rate, 
Percy  and  potato-lipped  Terry  developed  friction 
which  ended  up  in  every  promise  of  a  fight,  only 
Dinky-Dunk  arrived  in  the  nick  of  time  and  took 
Terry  off  his  harassed  neighbor's  hands.  I  told 
him  he  had  rather  the  habit  of  catching  people  on 
the  bounce.  But  I  am  reserving  my  opinion  of 
Terry  Dillon.  We  are  a  happy  family  here,  and  I 
want  no  trouble-makers  in  my  neighborhood. 

I  have  been  studying  some  of  the  New  York  mag- 
azines, going  rather  hungrily  through  their  adver- 
tisements where  such  lovely  layettes  are  described 
My  poor  little  Dinky-Dink's  things  are  so  plain 
and  rough  and  meager.  I  envy  those  city  mothers 
with  all  those  beautiful  linens  and  laces.  But  my 
little  Spartan  man-child  has  never  known  a  single 
iay's  sickness.    And  some  day  he'll  show  'em  I 


S6€ 


Thursday  the  Fourteenth 

When  Olie  came  in  after  dinner  yesterday  I 
asked  him  where  my  husband  was.  OHe,  after 
some  hesitation,  admitted  that  he  was  out  in  the 
stable.  I  asked  just  what  Dinky-Dunk  was  doing 
there,  for  I'd  noticed  that  after  each  meal  he  slipped 
silently  away.  Again  Olie  hesitated.  Then  he 
finally  admitted  that  he  thought  maybe  my  lord  was 
out  there  smoking.  So  I  went  out,  and  there  I 
found  my  poor  old  Dinky-Dunk  sitting  on  a  grain- 
box  puffing  gloomily  away  at  his  old  pipe.  For  a 
minute  or  two  he  didn't  see  me,  so  I  went  right  over 
to  him.      "What   does   this   mean?"   I   demanded. 

"Why.?"  he  rather  guiltily  equivocated. 

*'Why  are  you  smoking  out  here?" 

*'I — er — I  rather  thought  you  might  think  it 
wouldn't  be  good  for  the  Boy!"  He  looked  pa- 
thetic as  he  said  that,  I  don't  know  why,  though 
I  loved  him  for  it.  He  made  me  think  of  a  king 
267 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

who'd  been  dethroned,  an  outsider,  a  man  without 
a  home.    It  brought  a  lump  into  my  throat. 

I  wormed  mj  way  up  close  to  him  on  the  grain- 
box,  so  that  he  had  to  hold  me  to  keep  from  falling 
off  the  end.  "Listen  to  me,"  I  commanded.  "You 
are  my  True  Love  and  my  Kaikobad  and  my  Man- 
God  and  my  Soul-Mate !  And  no  baby  is  ever  go- 
ing to  come  between  me  and  you !" 

"You  shouldn't  say  those  awful  things,"  he  de- 
clared, but  he  did  it  only  half-heartedly. 

"But  I  want  you  to  sit  and  smoke  with  me,  be- 
loved, the  same  as  you  always  did,"  I  told  him.  "We 
can  leave  the  windows  open  a  little  and  it  won't  hurt 
Dinky-Dink,  for  that  boy  gets  more  ozone  than  any 
city  child  that  was  ever  wheeled  out  in  the  Mall! 
It  can't  possibly  hurt  him.  What  hurts  me  is  being 
away  from  you  so  much.  And  now  give  me  a  hug, 
a  tight  one,  and  tell  me  that  you  still  love  youf 
Lady  Bird !"  He  gave  me  two,  and  then  two  more, 
until  Tumble- Weed  turned  round  in  his  stall  and 
whinnied  for  us  to  behave. 


^68 


Friday  the  Fifteenth 

I've  been  keeping  Terry  under  my  eye,  and  J 
don't  believe  he's  a  trouble-maker.  His  first  mov< 
was  to  lift  Babe  out  of  the  cradle,  hold  him  up  an(J 
publicly  announce  that  he  was  a  darlin'.  Then 
he  pointed  out  to  me  what  a  wonderful  head  the 
child  had,  feeling  his  frontal  bone  and  declaring 
he  was  sure  to  make  a  great  scholar  in  his  time. 
Dinky-Dunk,  grinning  at  the  sober  way  in  which 
I  was  swallowing  this,  pointedly  inquired  of  Terry 
whether  it  was  Milton  or  Archimedes  that  Babe 
most  resembled  as  to  skull  formation.  But  it  isn't 
Terry's  blarney  that  has  made  me  capitulate;  it's 
the  fact  that  he  has  proved  so  companionable  and 
has  slipped  so  quietly  into  his  place  in  our  little 
lonely  circle  of  lives  on  this  ragged  edge  of  no- 
where. 

And  he's  as  clean  as  a  cat,  shaving  every  blessed 
morning  with   a  little   old   broken-handled   razor 
269 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

which  he  strops  on  a  strip  of  oiled  bootleg.  He 
declares  that  razor  to  be  the  finest  bit  of  steel  in 
all  the  Americas,  and  showed  off  before  Olie  and 
Olga  yesterday  morning  by  shaving  without  a  look- 
ing-glass, which  trick  he  said  he  learned  in  the 
army.  He  also  gave  Olie  a  hair-cut,  which  was 
badly  needed,  and  on  Sunday  has  promised  to 
rig  up  a  soldering-iron  and  mend  all  my  pans  for 
me.  He  looks  little  over  twenty,  but  is  really 
thirty  and  more,  and  has  been  in  India  and  Mexico 
and  Alaska. 

I  caught  him  neatly  darning  his  own  woolen 
socks.  Instead  of  betraying  shame  at  being  de- 
tected in  that  effeminate  pastime  he  proudly  ex- 
plained that  he'd  learned  to  do  a  bit  of  stitching 
in  the  army.  He  hasn't  many  possessions,  but 
he's  very  neat  in  his  arrangement  of  them.  A 
good  soldier,  he  solemnly  told  me,  always  had  to 
be  a  bit  of  an  old  maid.  "And  you  were  a  grand 
soldier,  Terry,  I  know,"  I  frankly  told  him.  "I've 
done  a  bit  av  killing  in  me  time!"  he  proudly  ac- 
knowledged. But  as  he  sat  there  darning  his  sock- 
270 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

Xeel  he  looked  as  though  he  couldn't  kill  a  field 
aiouse.  And  in  his  idle  hours  he  reads  Nick  Car' 
fer,  a  series  of  paper-bound  detective  stories,  al- 
most worn  to  tatters,  which  he  is  going  through 
for  the  second  or  third  time.  These  adventures, 
I  find,  he  later  recounts  to  Olie,  who  is  slowly  but 
surely  succumbing  to  the  poison  of  the  penny- 
dreadful  and  the  virus  of  the  shilling-shocker!  I 
even  caught  Dinky-Dunk  sitting  up  over  one  of 
these  blood-curdling  romances  the  other  night, 
though  he  laughed  a  little  as  I  dragged  him  off 
to  bed,  at  the  absurdity  of  the  situations.  Terry's 
eyes  lighted  up  when  he  saw  my  books  and  maga- 
zines. When  I  told  him  he  could  take  anything 
he  wanted,  he  beamed  and  said  it  would  sure  be 
a  glorious  winter  he'd  be  having,  with  all  that  book- 
reading  when  the  long  nights  came.  But  before 
those  long  nights  are  over  I'm  going  to  try  to 
pilot  Terry  into  the  channels  of  respectable  liter- 
ature. 


271 


Saturday  the  Sixteenth 

I  LOVE  the  milky  smell  of  m^  Dinky-Dink  better 
than  the  perfume  of  any  flower  that  ever  grew. 
He's  so  strong  now  that  he  can  almost  lift  himself 
up  by  his  two  little  hands.  At  least  he  can  really 
and  actually  give  a  little  pull.  Two  days  ago  our 
touring-car  arrived.  It  is  a  beauty.  It  skims  over 
these  smooth  prairie  trails  like  a  yacht.  From 
now  on  we  can  run  into  Buckhorn,  do  our  shopping, 
jind  run  out  again  inside  of  two  or  three  hours. 
We  can  also  reach  the  larger  towns  without  trou- 
ble and  it  will  be  so  much  easier  to  gather  up  what 
we  need  for  Casa  Grande.  Dinky-Dink  seems  to 
love  the  car.  Ten  minutes  after  we  have  started 
out  he  is  always  fast  asleep.  Olga,  who  holds  him 
in  the  back  seat  when  I  get  tired,  sits  in  rapt  and 
silent  bliss  as  we  rock  along  at  thirty  miles  an 
hour.  And  no  wonder,  for  it's  the  next  best  thing 
to  sailing  out  on  the  briny  deep ! 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

I  can't  help  thinking  of  Terry's  attitude  toward 
Olga.  He  doesn't  actively  dislike  her,  but  he 
quietly  ignores  her,  even  more  so  than  Olie  does. 
I've  been  wondering  why  neither  of  them  has  suc- 
-cumbed  to  such  physical  grandeur.  Perhaps  it's 
because  they're  physical  themselves.  And  then  I 
think  her  largeness  oppresses  Terry,  for  no  man, 
whether  he's  been  a  soldier  or  not,  likes  to  be  over- 
topped by  a  woman. 

The  one  exception,  of  course,  is  Percy.  Bui 
Percy  is  a  man  of  imagination.  He  can  realize 
that  Olga  is  more  than  a  mere  type.  He  agrees 
with  me  that  she's  a  sort  of  miracle.  To  Terry 
she's  only  a  mute  and  muscular  Finnish  servant- 
girl  with  an  arm  like  a  grenadier's.  To  Percy 
she  is  a  goddess  made  manifest,  a  superhuman  body 
of  superhuman  vigor  and  beauty  and  at  the  same 
time  a  body  crowned  with  majesty  and  robed  in 
mystery.  And  I  still  incline  to  Percy's  opinioua 
Olga  is  always  wonderful  to  me.  Her  lips  are 
such  a  soft  and  melting  red,  the  red  of  perfect 
animal  health.  The  very  milkiness  of  her  skin  is 
^73 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

an  advertisement  of  that  queenly  and  all-conquer- 
ing  vitality  which  lifts  her  so  above  the  ordinary 
ruck  of  humanity.  And  her  great  ruminative  eyes 
are  as  clear  and  limpid  as  any  woodland  pool. 

She  blushes  rose  color  sometimes  when  Percy 
comes  in.  I  think  he  finds  a  secret  joy  in  sensing 
that  reaction  in  anything  so  colossal.  But  he  de- 
fends himself  behind  that  mask  of  cool  imperson- 
ality which  is  the  last  attribute  of  the  mental  aris- 
tocrat, no  matter  what  his  feelings  may  be.  His 
attitude  toward  Terry,  by  the  way,  is  a  remarkably 
companionable  one  in  view  of  the  fact  of  their 
earlier  contentions.  They  can  let  by-gones  be  by- 
gones and  talk  and  smoke  and  laugh  together.  It 
is  Terry,  if  any  one,  who  is  just  a  wee  bit  con- 
descending. And  I  imagine  that  it  is  the  aura  of 
Olga  which  has  brought  about  this  oddly  democ- 
ratizing condition  of  affairs.  She  seems  to  give 
a  new  relationship  to  things,  softening  a  point 
here  and  illuminating  a  point  there  as  quietly  as 
acioonlight  itself  can  do. 


£T4 


Monday  the  Seventeenth 

Yesterday  Olga  carried  home  a  whole  pailful 
of  mushrooms,  for  an  Indian  summer  seems  to  have 
brought  on  a  second  crop  of  them.  They  were 
lovely.  But  she  refused  to  eat  any.  I  asked  her 
why.  She  heaved  her  huge  shoulders  and  said 
she  didn't  know.  But  she  does,  I  feel  sure,  and 
I've  been  wondering  why  she's  afraid  of  anything 
that  can  taste  so  good,  once  they  are  creamed  and 
heaped  on  a  square  of  toast.     As  for  me 

I  love  'em,  I  love  'em,  and  who  shall  dare 
To  chide  me  for  loving  that  mushroom  fare? 


«75 


Wednesday  the  Nineteenth 

I  FOUND  myself  singing  i(j^  all  I  was  worth  as 
I  did  my  work  this  morning.  Dinky-Dunk  came 
and  stood  in  the  door  and  said  it  sounded  like 
old  times.  I  feel  strong  again  and  have  ventured 
to  ask  my  lord  and  master  if  I  couldn't  have  the 
weentiest  gallop  on  Paddy  once  more.  But  he's 
made  me  promise  to  wait  for  a  week  or  two.  The 
last  two  or  tkree  nights  have  been  quite  cold,  and 
away  off,  miles  and  miles  across  the  prairie,  we 
can  see  the  glow  of  fires  where  different  ranchers 
are  burning  their  straw,  after  the  wind-stackers 
have  blown  it  from  the  threshing  machines.  Some- 
times it  burns  all  night  long. 


276 


'Friday  the  Twenty-firs^ 

I  HAVE  this  morning  found  out  why  Olga  won't 
eat  mushrooms.  It  was  very  cold  again  last  night, 
for  this  time  of  year.  Percy  came  over,  and  we 
had  a  ripping  fire  and  popped  Ontario  pop-corn 
with  Ontario  maple  sirup  poured  over  it.  Olga 
and  Olie  and  Terry  all  came  in  and  sat  about  the 
stove.  And  being  absolutely  happy  and  contented 
and  satisfied  with  life  in  general,  we  promptly  fell 
to  talking  horrors,  the  same  as  a  cook  stirs  lemon 
juice  into  her  pudding-sauce,  I  suppose,  to  keep 
its  sweetness  from  being  too  cloying.  That  revel 
in  the  by-paths  of  the  Poesque  began  with  Dinky- 
Dunk's  casual  reference  to  the  McKinnon  ranch 
and  Percy's  inquiry  as  to  why  its  earlier  owner 
had  given  it  up.  So  Dinky-Dunk  recounted  the 
story  of  Andrew  Cochrane's  death.  And  it  was 
noticeable  that  poor  old  Olie  betrayed  visible  signs 
of  distress  at  this  tale  of  a  young  ranchman  being 
277 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

frozen  to  death  alone  in  his  shack  in  mid-winter. 
So  Dinky-Dunk,  apparently  with  malice  prepense, 
enlarged  on  his  theme,  describing  how  all  young 
Cochrane's  stock  had  starved  in  their  stalls  and  how 
his  collie  dog  which  had  been  chained  to  a  kennel- 
box  outside  the  shack  had  first  drawn  attention  to 
the  tragedy.  A  government  inspector,  in  riding 
past,  had  noticed  the  shut-up  shack,  had  pounded 
on  the  door,  and  had  promptly  discovered  the  skel- 
eton of  the  dog  with  a  chain  and  collar  still  at- 
tached to  the  clean-picked  neckbones.  And  inside 
the  shack  he  had  found  the  dead  man  himself,  as 
life-like,  because  of  the  intense  cold,  as  though 
he  had  fallen  asleep  the  night  before. 

It  was  not  a  pleasant  story,  and  my  efforts  to 
picture  the  scene  gave  me  rather  a  bristly  feeling 
along  the  pin-feather  area  of  my  anatomy.  An(? 
again  undoubted  signs  of  distress  were  manifest 
in  poor  Olie.  The  face  of  that  simple-souled  Swede 
took  on  such  a  look  of  wondering  trouble  that 
Dinky-Dunk  deliberately  and  at  great  detail  told 
of  a  ghost  that  had  been  repeatedly  seen  in  an 
^78 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

abandoned  wickyup   a   little   farther  west   in  the 
province. 

And  that,  of  course,  fired  the  Celtic  soul  of  Terry, 
who  told  of  the  sister  of  his  Ould  Counthry  mas- 
ter who  had  once  been  taken  to  a  hospital.  And 
just  at  dusk  on  the  third  day  after  that  his  young 
master  was  walking  down  the  dark  hall.  As  he 
passed  his  sister's  door,  there  she  stood  all  in  white, 
quietly  brushing  her  hair,  as  plain  as  day  to  his 
eyes.  And  with  that  the  master  rushed  down-stairs 
to  his  mother  asking  how  Sheila  had  got  back  from 
the  hospital.  And  his  old  mother,  being  slow  of 
movement,  started  for  Sheila's  room.  But  before 
she  so  much  as  reached  the  foot  of  the  stairs  a 
neighbor  woman  came  running  in,  wiping  her  eyes 
with  her  shawl-end  and  saying,  "Poor  Sheila  died 
this  minute  over  t'  the  hospital!"  I  can't  tell  it 
as  Terry  told  it,  and  I  don't  know  whether  he 
iimself  believed  in  it  or  not,  but  the  huge  bulk 
of  Olie  Larson  sat  there  bathed  in  a  fine  sweat, 
with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  stove  front.  He  was 
hy  no  means  happy,  and  yet  he  seemed  unable  to 
279 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

tear  himself  away,  just  as  Gimlets  and  I  used  to 
sit  chained  to  the  spot  while  Grandfather  Heppel- 
white  continued  to  intone  the  dolorous  history  of 
the  "Babes  in  the  Woods"  until  our  ultimate  and 
inevitable  collapse  into  tears! 

So  Percy,  who  is  not  without  his  spirit  of  rag- 
ging, told  several  whoppers,  which  he  later  con- 
fessed came  from  the  Society  of  Psychical  Research 
records.  And  I  huskily  recounted  Uncle  Carlton's 
story  of  the  neurasthenic  lady  patient  who  went 
Into  a  doctor's  office  and  there  beheld  a  skull  stand- 
ing on  his  polished  rosewood  desk.  Then,  as  she 
sat  staring  at  it,  this  skull  started  to  move  slowly 
toward  her.  It  later  turned  out  to  be  only  a  plas- 
ter-of-Paris  paper  weight,  and  a  mouse  had  got 
inside  it  and  found  a  piece  of  cracker  there — and 
a  cracker,  I  had  to  explain  to  Percy,  was  the  name 
under  which  a  biscuit  usually  masqueraded  in  Amer- 
ica. That  mouse,  in  its  efforts  to  get  the  last  of 
that  cracker,  had,  of  course,  shifted  the  skuU  along 
the  polished  wood. 

This  reminded  Dinky-Dunk  of  the  three  medical 
280 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

students  who  had  tried  to  frighten  their  landlady^ 
daughter  by  smuggling  an  arm  from  the  dissect- 
ing room  and  hiding  it  under  the  girl's  pillow. 
Dinky-Dunk  even  solemnly  avowed  that  the  three 
men  were  college  chums  of  his.  They  waited  to 
hear  the  girl's  scream,  but  as  there  was  nothing 
but  silence  they  finally  stole  into  the  room.  And 
there  they  saw  the  girl  sitting  on  the  floor,  hold- 
ing the  arm  in  her  hands.  As  she  sat  there  she 
was  mumbling  to  herself  and  eating  one  end  of  it ! 
Of  course  the  poor  thing  had  gone  stark  staring 
mad. 

Olie  groaned  audibly  at  this  and  wiped  his  fore- 
head with  his  coat-sleeve.  But  before  he  could 
get  away  Terry  started  to  tell  of  the  four-bottle 
Irish  sea  captain  who  was  sober  only  when  at  sea 
and  one  night  in  port  stumbled  up  to  bed  three 
sheets  in  the  wind.  When  he  had  navigated  into 
what  he  thought  was  his  own  room  he  was  as- 
tounded to  find  a  man  already  in  bed  there,  and 
even  drunker  than  he  was  himself,  too  drunk,  in 
fact,  to  move.  And  even  the  candles  had  been  left 
S81 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

burning.  But  the  old  captain  climbed  over  next 
to  the  wall,  clothes  and  all,  and  would  have  been 
fast  asleep  in  two  minutes  if  two  stout  old  ladies 
hadn't  come  in  and  started  to  cry  and  say  a  prayer 
or  two  at  the  side  of  the  bed.  Thereupon  the  old 
captain,  muddled  as  he  was,  quietly  but  inquisitively 
reached  over  and  touched  the  man  beside  him.  And 
that  man  was  cold  as  ice!  The  captain  gave  one 
howl  and  made  for  the  door.  But  the  old  ladies 
went  first,  and  they  all  rolled  down  the  stairs  one 
after  the  other  and  the  three  of  them  up  and  ran 
]ike  the  wind.  ''And  niver  wanst  did  they  stop," 
declared  the  brogue-mouthing  Terry,  "till  they 
lept  flat  against  the  sea-wall!" 

Olie,  who  had  moved  away  to  the  far  end  of  the 
^able,  got  up  at  this  point  and  went  to  the  door 
and  looked  out.  He  sighed  lugubriously  as  he 
stared  into  the  darkness  of  the  night.  The  outer 
gloom,  apparently,  was  too  much  for  him,  as  he 
came  slowly  and  reluctantly  back  to  his  chair  at 
the  far  end  of  the  table  and  it  was  plain  to  sec 
that  he  was  as  frightened  as  a  five-year-old  child. 
^8£ 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

The  men,  I  suppose,  would  have  badgered  him 
until  midnight,  for  Terry  had  begun  a  story  of  a 
negro  who'd  been  sent  to  rob  a  grave  and  found 
the  dead  man  not  quite  dead.  But  I  declared  that 
we'd  had  enough  of  horrors  and  declined  to  hear 
anything  more  about  either  ghosts  or  deaders.  I 
was,  in  fact,  getting  just  a  wee  bit  creepy  along 
the  nerve-ends  myself.  And  Babe  whimpered  a 
little  in  his  cradle  and  brought  us  all  suddenly 
back  from  the  Wendigo  Age  to  the  time  of  the 
kerosene  lamp.  "Fra'  witches  and  warlocks,"  I 
solemnly  intoned,  "fra'  wurricoos  and  evil  speerits, 
and  f ra'  a'  ferly  things  that  wheep  and  gang  bump 
in  the  nicht,  Guid  Lord  deliver  us !"  And  that  in- 
cantation, I  feel  sure,  cleared  the  air  for  both  my 
own  sprite-threatened  offspring  and  for  the  simple- 
minded  Olie  himself,  although  Dinky-Dunk  ex- 
plained that  my  Scotch  was  rather  worse  than  the 
stories. 

But  it  was  this  morning  after  breakfast  that  I 
learned  from  Olga  why  she  never  cared  to  eat  mush- 
rooms.   And  all  day  long  her  stor^  >^as  been  hang- 
S8S 


THE   PRAIRIE    WIFE 

ing  between  me  and  the  sun,  like  a  cloud.  Noi 
that  there  is  anything  so  wonderful  about  the  story 
itself,  outside  of  its  naked  tragedy.  But  I  think 
it  was  more  the  way  that  huge  placid-eyed  girl 
told  it,  with  her  broken  English  and  her  occasional 
pauses  to  grope  after  the  right  word.  Or  perhaps 
it  was  because  it  came  as  such  a  grim  reality  after 
the  trifling  grotesqueries  of  the  night  before.  At 
any  rate,  as  I  heard  it  this  morning  it  seemed  as 
terrible  as  anything  in  Tolstoi's  Heart  of  DarJc^ 
ness,  and  more  than  once  sent  my  thoughts  back 
to  the  sorrows  of  the  house  of  CEdipus.  It  startled 
me  a  little,  too,  for  I  never  thought  to  catch  an 
echo  of  Greek  tragedy  out  of  the  full  soft  lips  of 
a  Finnish  girl  who  was  helping  me  wash  my  break- 
fast dishes. 

It  began  as  I  was  deciding  on  my  dinner  menu, 
and  looked  to  see  if  all  our  mushrooms  had  been 
used  up.  That  prompted  me  to  ask  the  girl  why 
she  never  ate  them.  I  could  see  a  barricaded  look 
come  into  her  eyes  but  she  merely  shrugged  and 
said  that  sometimes  they  were  poison  and  killed 
284 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

people.  I  told  her  that  this  was  absurd  and  that  any 
one  with  ordinary  intelligence  soon  got  to  know  a 
meadow  mushroom  when  he  saw  one.  But  some- 
times, Olga  insisted,  they  were  death  cups.  If  you 
ate  a  death  cup  you  died,  and  nothing  could  save 
you.  I  tried  to  convince  her  that  this  was  just  a 
peasant  superstition,  but  she  announced  that  she 
had  seen  death  cups,  many  of  them,  and  had  seen 
people  who  had  been  killed  by  them.  And  then 
brokenly,  and  with  many  heavy  gestures  of  hesi- 
tation, she  told  me  the  story. 

Nearly  seventy  miles  northwest  of  us,  up  near 
her  old  home,  so  she  said,  a  Pole  named  Andrei 
Przenikowski  and  his  wife  used  to  live.  They  had 
one  son,  whose  name  was  Jozef.  They  were  poor, 
always  poor,  and  could  never  succeed.  So  when 
Jozef  was  fifteen  years  old  he  went  to  the  coast 
to  make  his  fortune.  And  the  old  father  and  mother 
had  a  hard  time  of  it,  for  old  Andrei  found  it  no 
easy  thing  to  get  about,  having  had  his  feet  frozen 
years  before.  He  stumped  around  like  a  hen  with 
frost-bitten  claws,  Olga  said,  and  his  wife,  old  as 
^85 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

she  was,  had  to  help  him  in  the  fields.  One  whole 
winter,  he  told  Olga's  father,  they  had  lived  on 
turnips.  But  season  after  season  dragged  on,  and 
still  they  existed,  God  knows  how.  Of  Jozef  they 
never  heard  again.  But  with  Jozef  himself  it  was 
a  different  story.  The  boy  went  up  to  Alaska, 
before  the  days  of  the  Klondike  strike.  There  he 
worked  in  the  fisheries,  and  in  the  lumber  camps, 
and  still  later  he  joined  a  mining  outfit.  Then  he 
went  in  to  the  Yukon. 

That  was  twelve  years  after  he  had  first  left 
home.  He  was  a  strong  man  by  this  time  and 
spoke  English  very  well.  And  the  next  year  he 
struck  luck,  and  washed  up  a  great  deal  of  gold, 
thousands  of  dollars'  worth  of  gold.  But  he  saved 
It  all,  for  he  had  never  forgotten  the  old  folks 
on  their  little  farm.  So  he  gathered  up  his  money 
and  went  down  to  Seattle,  and  then  crossed  to 
Vancouver.  From  there  he  made  his  way  back  to 
his  old  home,  dressed  like  a  man  of  the  world  and 
wearing  a  big  gold  watch  and  chain  and  a  gold 
ring.  And  when  he  walked  in  on  the  old  folks  they 
^86 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

failed  to  recognize  him — and  that  Jozef  thought 
the  finest  of  jokes.  He  filled  the  little  sod-covered 
shack  with  his  laughter,  for  he  was  happy.  He 
knew  that  for  the  rest  of  their  days  their  troubles 
had  all  ended.  So  he  walked  about  and  made  plans, 
but  still  he  did  not  tell  them  who  he  was.  It  was 
so  good  a  joke  that  he  intended  to  make  the  most 
of  it.  But  he  said  that  he  had  news  of  their  Jozef, 
who  was  not  so  badly  off  for  a  ne'er-do-well.  Be- 
fore he  left  the  next  day,  he  promised,  they  should 
be  told  about  their  boy.  And  he  laughed  again 
and  slapped  his  pocketful  of  gold  and  the  two  old 
folks  sat  blinking  at  him  in  awe,  until  he  announced 
that  he  was  hungry  and  confided  to  them  that  his 
friend  Jozef  had  once  told  him  there  were  won- 
derful mushrooms  round-about  at  that  season  of 
the  year. 

Andrei  and  his  wife  talked  together  in  the  cow- 
shed, before  the  old  man  hobbled  out  to  gather  the 
mushrooms.  Poverty  and  suffering  had  made  them 
hard  and  the  sight  of  this  stranger  with  so  much 
gold  was  too  much  for  them.  So  it  was  a  plate 
287 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

full  of  death  cups  which  Andrei's  wife  cooked  for 
the  brown-faced  stranger  with  the  loud  laugh.  And 
they  stood  about  and  watched  him  eat  them.  Then 
he  died,  as  Andrei  knew  he  must  die.  But  the 
old  woman  hid  in  the  cow-shed  until  it  was  over, 
for  it  took  some  time.  Together  then  the  old  couple 
searched  the  dead  man's  bags  and  his  pockets. 
They  found  papers  and  certain  marks  on  his  body. 
They  knew  then  that  they  had  murdered  their  own 
son.  The  old  man  hobbled  all  the  way  to  the  near- 
est village,  where  he  sent  a  letter  to  Olga's  father 
and  bought  a  clothes-line  to  take  home.  The  jour- 
ney took  him  an  entire  day.  With  that  clothes- 
line Andrei  Przenikowski  and  his  wife  hanged  them- 
selves, from  one  of  the  rafters  in  the  cow-shed. 

Olga  said  that  she  was  only  five  years  old  then, 
but  she  remembered  driving  over  with  the  others, 
after  the  letter  had  come  to  her  father's  place. 
She  can  still  remember  seeing  the  two  old  bodies 
hanging  side  by  side  and  twisting  slowly  about 
in  the  wind.  And  she  saw  what  was  left  of  the 
mushrooms.  She  says  she  can  never  forget  it  and 
^88 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

dreams  of  it  quite  often.  And  Olga  is  not  what 
you  would  call  emotional.  She  told  me,  as  she 
dried  her  hands  and  hung  up  the  dish-pan,  that 
she  can  still  see  her  people  staring  down  at  what 
was  left  of  that  plate  of  poisoned  death  cups,  which 
had  turned  quite  black,  almost  as  black  as  the  dead 
man  she  saw  them  lift  up  on  the  dirtj  bed. 


£89 


Monday  the  Twelfth 

Yesterday  was  Sunday  and  Olga  in  her  best  bib 
and  tucker  sat  out  in  the  sun  with  Dinky-Dink. 
She  seemed  perfectly  happy  merely  to  hold  him. 
I  looked  out,  to  make  sure  he  was  all  right,  for  a 
few  days  before  Olga  had  nearly  given  me  heart 
failure  by  balancing  my  boy  on  one  huge  hand, 
as  though  he  were  a  mutton-chop,  so  that  the  ador- 
ing Olie  might  see  him  kick.  As  I  stood  watching 
Olga  crooning  above  Buddy  Boy,  Percy  rode  up. 
Then  he  came  over  and  joined  Olga,  who  carefully 
lifted  up  the  veil  covering  Dinky-Dink's  face,  and 
showed  him  off  to  the  somewhat  intimidated  Percy. 
Percy  poked  a  finger  at  him,  and  made  absurd 
noises,  and  felt  his  legs  as  Olga  directed  and  then 
sat  down  in  front  of  Olga. 

They  talked  there  for  a  long  time,  quite  oblivious 
of  everything  about  them.  At  least  Percy  talked, 
for  Olga's  replies  seemed  mostly  monosyllabic.  But 
^90 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

she  kept  bathing  him  in  that  mystic  moonlight  stare 
of  hers  and  sometimes  she  showed  her  teeth  in  a 
slow  and  wistful  sort  of  smile.  Percy  clattered 
on,  quite  unconscious  that  I  was  standing  in  the 
doorway  staring  at  him.  They  seemed  to  be  great 
pals.  And  I've  been  wondering  what  they  talked 
about. 


»91 


Wednesday  the  Fourteenth 

To-day  after  dinner  Dinky-Dunk  took  the  Boy 
and  held  him  up  on  Paddy's  back,  where  he  looked 
like  a  bump  on  a  log.  And  that  started  me  think- 
ing that  it  wouldn't  be  so  long  before  my  little 
Snoozerette  had  a  pony  of  his  own  and  would  be 
cantering  off  across  the  prairie  like  a  monkey  on 
a  circus  horse.  For  I  want  my  boy  to  ride,  and 
ride  well.  And  then  a  little  later  he  would  be 
cantering  off  to  school.  And  then  it  wouldn't  be 
such  a  great  while  before  he'd  be  hitting  the  trail 
side  by  side  with  some  clear-eyed  prairie  girl  on 
a  dappled  pinto,  and  I'd  be  a  silvery-haired  old 
lady  wondering  if  that  clear-eyed  girl  was  good 
enough  for  my  son!  And  there  I  was,  as  usual, 
dreaming  of  the  future ! 

All  day  long  the  fact  that  Dinky-Dunk  is  get- 
ting extravagant  has  been  hitting  me  just  under 
the  fifth  rib.  So  I  asked  him  if  we  could  realljr 
^9% 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

afford  a  six-cylinder  car  with  tan  slip-covers  and 
electric  lights.  "Afford  it?"  he  echoed,  "of  course 
we  can  afford  it.  We  can  afford  anything.  Hang 
It  all,  our  lean  days  are  over  and  we  haven't  had 
the  imagination  to  wake  up  to  the  fact.  And 
d'you  know  what  I'm  going  to  do  if  certain  things 
come  my  way?  I'm  going  to  send  you  and  the 
Babe  down  to  New  York  for  the  winter !" 

"And  where  will  you  be?"  I  promptly  inquired. 
The  look  of  mingled  pride  and  determination  went 
out  of  his  face. 

"Oh,  I'll  have  to  hang  around  the  Polar  regions 
up  here  to  look  after  things.  But  you  and  the  Boy 
have  got  to  have  your  chance.  And  I'll  come  down 
for  two  weeks  at  Easter  and  bring  you  home  with 
me!" 

"And  will  you  be  enjoying  It  up  here?"  I  In- 
quired. 

*'0f  course  I  won't,"  acknowledged  Dinky-Dunk. 
*'But  think  what  it  will  mean  to  you,  Gee-Gee,  to 
have  a  few  months  in  the  city  again!     And  think 
Xfhed  you've  been  missing!" 
293 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

"Goosey-goosey-gander!"  I  said  as  I  got  his 
foolish  old  head  in  Chancery.  "I  want  you  to 
listen  to  me.  There's  nothing  I've  been  missing. 
And  you  are  plum  locoed,  Honey  Chile,  if  you  think 
I  could  ever  be  happy  away  from  you,  in  New  York 
or  any  other  city.  And  I  wouldn't  go  there  for 
the  winter  if  you  gave  me  the  Plaza  and  all  the 
Park  for  a  back  yard !" 

That  declaration  cf  mine  seemed  to  puzzle  him. 
"But  think  what  it  would  mean  to  the  Boy!"  he 
contended. 

"Well,  what?"  I  demanded. 

"Oh,  good — er — good  pictures  and  music  and  all 
that  sort  of  thing!"  he  vaguely  explained.  I 
couldn't  help  laughing  at  him. 

"But,  Dinky-Dunk,  don't  you  think  Babe's  a 
month  or  so  too  young  to  take  up  Debussy  and 
the  Post-Impressionists,  you  big,  foolish,  adorable 
old  muddle-headed  captor  of  helpless  ladies' 
hearts!"  And  I  firmly  announced  that  he  could 
never,  never  get  rid  of  me. 


294 


Thursday  the  Fifteenth 

Now  that  Olga  is  working  altogether  inside  with 
me  she  is  losing  quite  a  little  of  her  sunburn.  Her 
skin  is  softer  and  she  has  acquired  a  little  more 
of  the  Leonardo  di  Vinci  look.  She  almost  seems 
to  be  getting  spiritualized — ^but  it  may  be  simply 
because  she's  lengthened  her  skirts.  She  loves  Babe, 
and,  I'm  afraid,  is  rather  spoiling  him.  I  find  her 
a  better  and  better  companion,  not  only  because  she 
talks  more,  but  because  she  seems  in  some  way 
to  be  climbing  up  to  a  newer  level.  Between  whiles, 
I'm  teaching  her  to  cook.  She  learns  readily,  and 
is  proud  of  her  progress.  But  the  thing  of  which 
she  is  proudest  is  her  corsets.  And  they  do  make 
a  difference.  Even  Dinky-Dunk  has  noticed  this. 
Yesterday  he  stood  and  stared  after  her. 

**By  gum,"  he  sagely  remarked,  "that  girl  w 
getting  a  figure !"  Men  are  so  absurd.  When  thig 
same  Olga  was  going  about  half  uncovered  he  never 
295 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

even  noticed  her.  Now  that  she's  mystified  her 
nether  limbs  with  a  little  drapery  he  stands  star- 
ing after  her  as  though  she  were  a  Venus  de  Milo 
come  to  life.  And  Olga  is  slowly  but  surely  losing 
a  little  of  her  Arcadian  simplicity.  Yesterday  I 
caught  her  burning  up  her  cowhide  boots.  She 
IS  ashamed  of  them.  And  she  is  spending  most 
of  her  money  on  clothes,  asking  me  many  strange 
questions  as  to  apparel  and  carrying  off  my  fash- 
ion magazines  to  her  bedroom  for  secret  perusal. 
For  the  first  time  in  her  life  she  is  using  cold 
cream.  And  the  end  seems  to  justify  the  means, 
for  her  skin  is  now  like  apple  blossoms.  Rodin, 
I  feel  sure,  would  have  carried  that  woman  across 
America  on  his  back,  once  to  have  got  her  into  his 
atelier ! 

Last  week  I  persuaded  Terry  to  take  a  try  at 
Meredith  and  lent  him  my  green  cloth  copy  of 
Harry  Richmond,  Three  days  ago  I  found  the 
seventh  page  turned  down  at  the  corner,  and  sus- 
pecting that  this  marked  the  final  frontier  of  his 
advance,  I  tied  a  strand  of  green  silk  thread  about 
^96 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

the  volume.  It  was  still  there  this  morning,  thouglii 
Terry  daily  and  stoutly  maintains  that  he's  get- 
ting on  grand  with  that  fine  green  book  of  mine  I 
But  at  noon  to-day  when  Dinky-Dunk  got  back 
from  Buckhorn  he  handed  Terry  a  parcel,  and  I 
noticed  the  latter  glanced  rather  uneasily  about 
as  he  unwrapped  it.  This  afternoon  I  discovered 
that  it  held  two  new  books  in  paper  covers.  One 
was  The  Hidden  Hand  and  the  other  was  called 
The  Terror  of  TamarasJca  Gulch,  Terry,  of  late, 
has  been  doing  his  reading  in  his  own  room.  And 
Nick  Carter,  apparently,  is  not  to  be  so  easily 
displaced.  But  a  man  who  can  make  you  read 
his  books  for  the  third  time  must  be  a  genius. 
If  I  were  an  author,  that's  the  sort  of  man  I'd 
envy.  And  I  think  I'll  try  Percival  Benson  with 
The  Terror  of  TamarasJca  Gulch  when  Terry  is 
through  with  it ! 


S97 


Friday  the  Sixteenth 

We  were  just  finishing  dinner  to-day,  and  an 
uncommonly  good  one  it  seemed  to  me,  and  I  was 
looking  contentedly  about  my  little  family  circle, 
wondering  what  more  life  could  hold  for  a  big 
healthy  hulk  of  a  woman  like  me,  when  the  drone 
and  purr  of  an  approaching  motor-car  broke 
through  the  sound  of  our  talk.  Dinky-Dunk,  in 
fact,  was  laying  down  the  law  about  the  farmer 
of  the  West,  maintaining  that  he  was  a  broader- 
spirited  and  bigger-minded  man  than  his  brother 
of  the  East,  and  pointing  out  that  the  westerner's 
wife  was  a  queen  who  if  she  had  little  ease  at  least 
had  great  honor.  And  I  was  just  thinking 
that  one  glorious  thing  about  this  same  queen  was 
that  she  at  least  escaped  from  all  the  twentieth- 
century  strain  and  dislocation  in  the  relationship 
between  city  men  and  women,  when  the  hum  of 
that  car  brought  me  back  to  earth  and  reminded 
298 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

me  that  I  might  have  a  tableful  of  guests  to  feel 
The  car  itself  drew  up,  with  a  flutter  of  its  en- 
gine, half-way  between  the  shack  and  the  corral, 
and  at  that  sound  I  imagine  we  all  rather  felt  like 
Robinson  Crusoes  listening  to  the  rattle  of  an 
anchor  cable  in  Juan  Fernandez's  quietest  bay. 
And  through  the  open  window  I  could  make  out 
a  huge  touring-car  pretty  well  powdered  with  dust 
and  with  no  less  than  six  men  in  it. 

Terry,  all  eyes,  dove  for  the  window,  and  Olie, 
all  mouth,  for  the  door.  Olga  leaned  half-way 
across  the  table  to  look  out,  and  I  did  a  little  star- 
ing myself.  The  only  person  who  remained  quiet 
was  Dinky-Dunk.  He  knocked  out  his  pipe,  stuck 
it  in  his  pocket,  put  on  his  hat  and  caught  up 
a  package  of  papers  from  his  work  table.  Then 
he  stalked  out,  with  his  gray  fighting  look  about 
the  eyes.  He  went  out  just  as  one  of  the  bigger 
men  was  about  to  step  down  from  the  car,  so  that 
the  bigger  man  changed  his  mind  and  climbed  back 
in  his  seat,  like  a  king  reascending  his  throne. 
And  they  all  sat  there  so  sedate  and  non-committal 
299 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

and  dignified,  rather  like  dusty  pallbearers  in  am 
undertaker's  wagonette,  that  I  promptly  decided 
they  had  come  to  foreclose  a  mortgage  and  take 
my  Dinky-Dunk's  land  away  from  him,  at  one  fell 
swoop !  • 

I  could  see  my  lord  walk  right  up  to  the  run- 
ning-board, with  curt  little  nods  to  his  visitors, 
and  I  knew  by  the  trim  of  his  shoulders  that  there 
was  trouble  ahead.  Yet  they  started  talking  quietly 
enough.  But  inside  of  two  minutes  my  Dinky- 
Dunk  was  shaking  his  fist  in  the  face  of  one  of 
the  younger  and  bigger  men  and  calling  him  a  liar 
and  somewhat  tautologically  accusing  him  of  know- 
ing that  he  was  a  liar  and  that  he  always  had  been 
one.  This  altogether  ungentlemanly  language  nat* 
urally  brought  forth  language  quite  as  ungentle- 
manly  from  the  accused,  who  stood  up  in  the  car 
and  took  his  turn  at  dancing  about  and  shaking 
his  own  fist.  And  then  the  others  seemed  to  take 
sides,  and  voices  rose  to  a  shout,  and  I  saw  that 
there  was  going  to  be  another  fight  at  Casa  Grande 
300 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

— ^and  I  promptly  decided  to  be  in  it.    So  off  went 
my  apron  and  out  I  went. 

It  was  funny.  For,  oddly  enough,  the  effect  of 
my  entrance  on  the  scene  was  like  that  on  a  noisy 
class-room  at  the  teacher's  return.  The  tumult 
stopped,  rather  sheepishly,  and  that  earful  of  men 
instinctively  slipped  on  their  armor  plate  of  over- 
obsequious  sex  gallantry.  They  knew  I  wasn't  a 
low-brow.  I  went  right  up  to  them,  though  some- 
thing about  their  funereal  discomfiture  made  me 
smile.  So  Dinky-Dunk,  mad  as  a  wet  hen  though 
he  was,  had  to  introduce  every  man- jack  of  them 
to  me!  One  was  a  member  of  Parliament,  and 
another  belonged  to  some  kind  of  railway  com- 
mittee, and  another  was  a  road  construction  official, 
and  another  was  a  mere  capitalist  who  owned  two 
or  three  newspapers.  The  man  Dinky-Dunk  had 
been  calling  a  liar  was  a  civil  engineer,  although 
it  seemed  to  me  that  he  had  been  acting  decidedly 
uncivil.  They  ventured  a  platitude  about  the  beau- 
tiful Indian  summer  weather  and  labored  out  a 
SOI 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

ponderous  joke  or  two  about  such  a  bad-tempered 
man  having  such  a  good-looking  wife — for  which 
I  despised  them  all.  But  I  could  see  that  even  if 
my  intrusion  had  put  the  soft  pedal  on  their  talk 
it  had  also  left  everything  uncomfortably  tentative 
and  non-committal.  For  some  reason  or  other  this 
was  a  man's  fight,  one  which  had  to  be  settled  in 
a  man's  way.  So  I  decided  to  retire  with  outward 
dignity  even  if  with  inward  embarrassment.  But 
I  resented  their  uncouth  commercial  gallantry  al- 
most as  much  as  I  abominated  their  trying  to  bully 
my  True  Love.  And  I  gave  them  one  Parthian 
shot  as  I  turned  away. 

"The  last  prize-fight  I  saw  was  in  a  sort  of 
souteneur's  cabaret  in  the  Avenue  des  Tilleuls,"  I 
sweetly  explained  to  them.  "But  that  was  nearly 
three  years  ago.  So  if  there  is  going  to  be  a  bout 
in  my  back  yard,  I  trust  you  gentlemen  will  be  so 
good  as  to  call  me !" 

And  smiling  up  into  their  somewhat  puzzled 
faces,  I  turned  on  my  heel  and  went  into  the  house. 
One  of  the  men  laughed  loud  and  deep,  at  this 
30a 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

speech  of  mine,  and  a  couple  of  the  others  seemed 
to  sit  puzzling  over  it.  Yet  two  minutes  after  I 
was  inside  the  shack  that  most  uncivil  civil  engineer 
and  Dinky-Dunk  were  at  it  again.  Their  language 
was  more  than  I  should  care  to  repeat.  The  end 
of  it  was,  however,  that  the  six  dusty  pallbearers 
all  stepped  stiffly  down  out  of  their  car  and  Dinky- 
Dunk  shouted  for  Olie  and  Terry.  At  first  I 
thought  it  was  to  be  a  duel,  only  I  couldn't  make 
out  how  it  could  be  fought  with  a  post-hole  augur 
and  a  few  lengths  of  jointed  gaspipe,  for  this  was 
what  the  men  carried  away  with  them. 

Away  across  the  prairie  I  could  see  them  appar- 
ently engaged  in  the  silly  and  quite  profitless  occu- 
pation of  putting  down  a  post-hole  where  it  wasn't 
in  the  least  needed,  and  then  clustering  about  this 
hole  like  a  bunch  of  professorial  bigwigs  about 
a  new  specimen  on  a  microscope  slide.  Then  they 
moved  on  and  made  another  hole,  and  still  another, 
until  I  got  tired  of  watching  them.  It  was  two 
hours  later  before  they  came  back.  Their  voices 
now  seemed  more  facetious  and  there  was  more 
SOS 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

laughing  and  joking,  Dinky-Dunk  and  the  uncivil 
civil  engineer  being  the  only  quiet  ones.  And 
then  the  car  engine  purred  and  hummed  and  they 
climbed  heavily  in  and  lighted  cigars  and  waved 
hands  and  were  off  in  a  cloud  of  dust. 

But  Dinky-Dunk,  when  he  came  back  to  the 
shack  with  his  papers,  was  in  no  mood  for  talk- 
ing. And  I  knew  better  than  to  try  to  pump  him. 
To-night  he  came  in  early  for  supper  and  an- 
nounced that  he'd  have  to  leave  for  Winnipeg  right 
away  and  might  even  have  to  go  on  to  Ottawa. 
So  I  cooked  his  supper  and  packed  his  bag  and 
held  Babe  up  for  him  to  kiss  good-by.  But  still 
I  didn't  bother  him  with  questions,  for  I  was  afraid 
of  bad  news.  And  he  knew  that  I  knew  I  could 
trust  him. 

He  kissed  me  good-by  in  a  tragically  tender, 
or  rather  a  tenderly  tragic  sort  of  way,  which 
made  me  wonder  for  a  moment  if  he  was  possibly 
never  coming  back  again.  So  I  made  'em  all  wait 
while  I  took  one  extra,  for  good  measure,  in  case 
I  should  be  a  grass  widow  for  the  rest  of  my  days. 
304 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

To-night,  however,  I  sat  Terry  down  at  the  end 
of  the  table  and  third  degreed  him  to  the  queen's 
taste.  The  fight,  as  far  as  I  can  learn  from  this 
circuitous  young  Irishman,  is  all  about  a  right  of 
way  through  our  part  of  the  province.  Dinky- 
Dunk,  it  seems,  has  been  working  for  it  for  over 
a  year.  And  the  man  he  called  wicked  names  had 
been  sent  out  by  the  officials  to  report  on  the  ter-* 
ritory.  My  husband  claims  he  was  bribed  by  the 
opposition  party  and  turned  in  a  report  saying 
our  district  was  without  water.  He  also  pro- 
claimed that  our  land — our  land,  mark  you! — was 
unvaryingly  poor  and  inferior  soil!  No  wonder 
my  Dinky-Dunk  had  stormed !  Then  Terry  rather 
disquieted  me  by  chortlingly  announcing  that  they 
had  put  one  over  on  the  whole  bunch.  For,  three 
days  before,  he'd  quietly  put  down  twenty  soil  and 
water-test  holes  and  carefully  filled  them  in  again. 
But  he'd  found  what  he  was  after.  And  that  lit- 
tle army  of  paid  knockers,  he  acknowledged,  had 
been  steered  into  the  neighborhood  where  the  soil 
was  deepest  and  the  water  was  nearest.  And  thai 
305 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

soon  showed  who  the  liar  was,  for  of  course  every* 
thing  came  out  as  Dinky-Dunk  wanted  it  to  come 
out! 

But  this  phase  of  it  I  didn't  discuss  with  Terry, 
for  I  had  no  desire  to  air  my  husband's  moral 
obliquities  before  his  hired  man.  Yet  I  am  still 
disturbed  by  what  I  have  heard.  Oh,  Dinky-Dunk, 
I  never  imagined  you  were  one  bit  sly,  even  in 
business  i 


m 


Sunday  the  Eighteenth 

Dlie  and  Terry  seem  convinced  of  the  fact  that 
Dinky-Dunk's  farming  has  been  a  success.  We 
have  saved  all  our  wheat  crop,  and  it's  a  whopper. 
Terry,  with  his  crazy  Celtic  enthusiasms,  says  that 
by  next  year  they'll  be  calling  Dinky-Dunk  the 
Wheat  King  of  the  West.  Olga  and  Percy  went 
buggy  riding  this  afternoon.  I  wish  I  had  some 
sort  of  scales  to  weight  my  Snoozerette.  I  know 
he's  doubled  in  the  last  three  weeks. 


SOT 


Sunday  the  Twenty-fifih 

My  Dinky-Dunk  is  home  again.  He  looks  a 
little  tired  and  hollow-eyed,  but  when  the  Boy 
crowed  and  smiled  up  at  him  his  poor  tired  face 
softened  so  wonderfully  that  it  brought  the  tears 
to  my  eyes.  I  finally  persuaded  him  to  stop  pet- 
ting Babe  and  pay  a  little  attention  to  me.  After 
supper  he  opened  up  his  extra  hand-bag  and  hauled 
out  the  heaps  of  things  he'd  brought  Babe  and 
me.  Then  I  sat  on  his  knee  and  held  his  ears  and 
made  him  blow  away  the  smoke,  every  shred  of  it, 
so  I  could  kiss  him  in  my  own  particular  places. 


808 


Tuesday  the  Twenty-seventh 

Dinky-Dunk  has  sailed  off  to  Buckhorn  to  do 
some  telegraphing  he  should  have  done  Saturday 
night.  My  suspicions  about  his  slyness,  by  the 
way,  were  quite  unfounded.  It  was  the  guileless- 
eyed  Terry  who  led  those  railway  officials  out  to 
the  spot  where  he'd  already  secretly  tested  for 
water  and  found  signs  of  it.  And  Terry  can't 
even  understand  why  Dinky-Dunk  is  so  toweringly 
angry  about  it  all! 


509 


Wednesday  the  Twenty-eighth 

When  Dinky-Dunk  came  in  last  night,  after 
his  drive  out  from  Buckhorn,  there  was  a  look  on 
his  face  that  rather  frightened  me.  I  backed  him 
up  against  the  door,  after  he'd  had  a  peep  at  the 
Boy,  and  said,  "Let  me  smell  your  breath,  sir!" 
For  with  that  strange  light  in  his  eyes  I  surely 
thought  he'd  been  drinking.  "Lips  that  touch  liq- 
uor," I  sang,  "shall  never  touch  mine!" 

But  I  was  mistaken.  And  Dinky-Dunk  only 
laughed  in  a  quiet  inward  rumbling  sort  of  way 
that  was  new  to  him.  "I  believe  I  am  drunk,  Boca 
Chica,"  he  solemnly  confessed,  "drunk  as  a  lord!" 
Then  he  took  both  my  hands  in  his. 

"D'you  know  what's  going  to  happen?"  he  de- 
manded. And  of  course  I  didn't.  Then  he  hurled 
it  point-blank  at  me. 

^^The  railway's  going  to  come!*' 

"Come  where.?"  I  gasped. 
310 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

*'Come  here,  right  across  our  land  I  It's  settled. 
And  there's  no  mistake  about  it  this  time.  Inside 
of  ten  months  there'll  be  choo-choo  cars  steaming 
past  Casa  Grande!" 

"Skookum !"  I  shouted. 

"And  there'll  be  a  station  within  a  mile  of  where 
you  stand!  And  inside  of  two  years  this  seven- 
teen or  eighteen  hundred  acres  of  land  will  be  worth 
forty  dollars  an  acre,  easily,  and  perhaps  even  fifty. 
And  what  that  means  you  can  figure  out  for  your- 
self!" 

"Whoopee!"  I  gasped,  trying  in  vain  to  figure 
out  how  much  forty  times  seventeen  hundred  was. 

But  that  was  not  all.  It  would  do  away  with 
the  road  haul  to  the  elevator,  which  might  have 
taken  most  of  the  profit  out  of  his  grain  growing. 
To  team  wheat  into  Buckhorn  would  have  been  a 
terrible  discount,  no  matter  what  luck  he  might 
have  with  his  crops.  So  he'd  been  moving  heaven 
and  earth  to  get  the  steel  to  come  his  way.  He'd 
pulled  wires  and  interviewed  members  and  guaran- 
teed a  water-tank  supply  and  promised  a  right  of 
311 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

way  and  made  use  of  his  old  engineering  friends 
—until  his  battle  was  won.  And  his  last  fight 
had  been  against  the  liar  who'd  sent  in  false  reports 
about  his  district.  But  that  was  over  now,  and 
Casa  Grande  will  no  longer  be  the  jumplng-off 
place  of  civilization,  the  dot  on  the  wilderness. 
It  will  be  on  the  time-tables  and  the  mail-routes, 
and  I  know  my  Dinky-Dunk  will  be  the  first  mayor 
of  the  new  city,  if  there  ever  is  a  city  to  be  mayoif 
of! 


Sl« 


Friday  the  Thirtt\Sh 

Dinky-Dunk  came  in  at  noon  to-dc  Yj  tiptoed 
over  to  the  crib  to  see  if  the  Boy  was  ai!  right, 
and  then  came  and  put  his  hands  on  my  shoulders, 
looking  me  solemnly  in  the  eye:  "What  do  you 
suppose  has  happened?"  he  demanded. 

"Another  railroad,"  I  ventured. 

He  shook  his  head.  Of  course  it  was  useless 
for  me  to  try  to  guess.  I  pushed  my  finger  against 
Dinky-Dunk's  Adam's  apple  and  asked  him  what 
the  news  was. 

"Percival  Benson  Woodhouse  has  just  calmly 
announced  to  me  that,  next  week,  he^s  going  to 
marry  Olga"  was  my  husband's  answer. 

And  he  wondered  why  I  smiled. 


313 


Sunday  the  First 

Little  Dinky-Dink  is  fast  asleep  in  his  hand- 
carved  Scandinavian  cradle.  The  night  is  cool, 
so  we  have  a  fire  going.  Big  Dinkj-Dunk,  who 
has  been  smoking  his  pipe,  is  sitting  on  one  side 
of  the  table,  and  I  am  sitting  on  the  other.  Be- 
tween us  lies  the  bundle  of  house-plans  which  have 
just  been  mailed  up  to  us  from  Philadelphia.  This 
is  the  second  night  we've  pored  over  them.  And 
we've  decided  what  we're  to  do  at  Casa  Grande. 
We're  to  have  a  telephone,  as  soon  as  the  railway 
gets  through,  and  a  wind-mill  and  running  water, 
and  a  new  bam  with  a  big  soft-water  tank  at  one 
end,  and  a  hot-water  furnace  in  the  new  house 
and  sleeping  porches  and  a  butler's  pantry  and 
a  laundry  chute — and  next  winter  in  California, 
if  we  want  it.  And  Dinky-Dunk  blames  himself 
for  never  having  had  brains  enough  to  plant  an 
avenue  or  two  of  poplars  or  Manitoba  maples  about 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

Casa  Grande,  for  now  we'll  have  to  wait  a  few 
years  for  foliage  and  shade.  And  he  intends  to 
have  a  playground  for  little  Dinky-Dink,  for  he 
agrees  with  me  that  our  boy  must  be  strong  and 
manly  and  muscular,  and  must  not  use  tobacco  in 
any  form  until  he  is  twenty  at  least.  And  Dinky-^ 
Dunk  has  also  agreed  that  I  shall  do  all  the  pun- 
ishing— if  any  punishing  is  ever  necessary!  His^ 
father,  by  the  way,  has  just  announced  that  he 
wants  Babe  to  go  to  McGill  and  then  to  Oxford. 
But  I  have  been  insisting  on  Harvard,  and  I  shall 
be  firm  about  this. 

That  promised  to  bring  us  to  a  dead-lock,  so 
we  went  back  to  our  house-plans  again,  and  Dinky- 
Dunk  pointed  out  that  the  new  living-room  would 
be  bigger  than  all  our  present  shack  and  the  annex 
put  together.  And  that  caused  me  to  stare  about 
our  poor  little  cat-eyed  cubby-hole  of  a  wickyup 
and  for  the  first  time  realize  that  our  first  home 
was  to  be  wiped  off  the  map.  And  nothing  would 
ever  be  the  same  again,  and  even  the  prairie  over 
which  I  had  stared  in  my  joy  and  my  sorrow  would 
316 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

always  be  diiferent!  A  lump  came  in  my  throat. 
And  when  Olga  came  in  and  I  handed  Dinky-Dink 
TO  her  she  could  see  that  my  lashes  were  wet.  But 
she  couldn't  understand. 

So  I  slipped  over  to  the  piano  and  uegan  to 
play.  Very  quietly  I  sang  through  Herman  Lohr's 
Irish  song  that  begins: 

In  the  dead  av  the  night,  acushla, 
When  the  new  big  house  is  still  .  .  . 

But  before  I  got  to  the  last  two  verses  I'm  afraid 
nay  voice  was  rather  shaky. 

In  the  dead  av  the  year,  acushla. 
When  me  wide  new  fields  are  brown, 
I  think  av  a  wee  ould  house. 
At  the  edge  av  an  ould  gray  town! 

I  think  av  the  rush-lit  faces, 
Where  the  room  and  loaf  was  small : 
But  the  new  years  seem  the  lean  years. 
And  the  ould  years,  best  av  all! 

Dinky-Dunk  came  and  stood  close  beside  me. 
**Has  my  Gee-Gee  a  big  sadness  in  her  little  prairie 
316 


THE    PRAIRIE    WIFE 

heart?"  he  asked  as  he  slipped  his  arms?  about 
me.  But  I  was  sniffling  and  couldn't  answer  him. 
And  the  cling  of  his  blessed  big  arms  about  me 
only  seemed  to  make  everything  worse.  So  I  was 
bawling  openly  when  he  held  up  my  face  and  helped 
himself  to  what  must  have  been  a  terribly  briny 
kiss.  But  I  slipped  away  into  my  bedroom,  for 
I'm  not  one  of  those  apple-blossom  women  who  can 
weep  and  still  look  pretty.  And  for  two  blessed 
hours  I've  been  sitting  here,  Matilda  Anne,  won- 
dering if  our  new  life  will  be  as  happy  as  our  old 
life  was.  .  .  .  Those  old  days  are  over  and 
gone,  and  the  page  must  be  turned.  And  on  that 
last  page  I  was  about  to  write  "Tamdm  shud" 
But  kinglike  and  imperative  through  the  quietness 
of  Casa  Grande  I  hear  the  call  of  my  beloved  little 
tenor  robusto — and  if  it  is  the  voice  of  hunger  it  is 
also  the  voice  of  hope! 


THE    END 


The  greatest  pleasure  in  life  is 
that  of  reading.  Why  not  then 
own  the  books  of  great  novelists 
when  the  price  is  so  small 


'C  Of  all  the  amuseffienfs  which  can  possibly 
be  imagined  for  a  hard-working  man,  after 
his  dady  toil,  or^  in  its  intervals,  there  is 
nothing  like  reading  an  entertaining  book. 
It  calls  for  no  bodily  exertion.  It  transports 
him  into  a  liuelier,  and  gayer,  and  more  di- 
versiHed  and  interesting  scene,  and  while  he 
enjoys  himself  there  he  may  forget  the  evils 
of  the  present  moment.  Nay,  it  accompanies 
him  to  his  next  day's  work,  and  gives  him 
something  to  think  of  besides  the  m^ere 
m^echanical  drudgery  of  his  every-day  occu^ 
potion — something  fie  can  enjoy  while  absent, 
and  look  forward  with  pleasure  to  return  to. 

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THE   BEST  OF   RECENT   FICTION 

Adventures  of  Jimmie  Dale,  The.    Frank  L.  Packard. 

Adventures  of  Sherlock  Holmes.    A.  Conan  Doyle. 

Affair  at  Flower  Acres,  The.     Carolyn  Wells. 

Affinities  and  Other  Stories.     Mary  Roberts  Rinehart. 

After  House,  The.     Mary  Roberts  Rinehart. 

Against  the  Winds.    Kate  Jordan. 

Alcatraz.    Max  Brand. 

Alias  I^chard  Power.    William  Allison. 

All  the  Way  by  Water.    Elizabeth  Stancy  Payne. 

Amateur  Gentleman,  The.     Jeffery  Farnol. 

Amateur  Inn,  The.     Albert  Payson  Terhune. 

Anna  the  Adventuress.     E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

Anne's  House  of  Dreams.     L.  M.  Montgomery. 

Anybody  But  Anne.     Carolyn  Wells. 

Are  All  Men  Alike,  and  The  Lost  Titian.    Arthur  Stringer. 

Around  Old  Chester.    Margaret  D eland. 

Arrant  Rover,  The.    Berta  Ruck. 

Athalie.     Robert  W.  Chambers. 

At  the  Mercy  of  Tiberius.     Augusta  Evans  Wilson. 

At  Sight  of  Gold.     Cynthia  Lombardi. 

Auction  Block,  The.    Rex  Beach. 

Aimt  Jane  of  Kentucky.    Eliza  C  Hall. 

Awakening  of  Helena  Ritchie.     Margaret  Deland. 

Bab:  a  Sub-Deb.    Mary  Roberts  Rinehart. 

Bar  20.     Clarence  E.  Mulford. 

Bar  20  Days.     Clarence  E.  Mulford. 

Bar-20  Three.     Clarence  E.  Mulford. 

Barrier,  The.     Rex  Beach. 

Bars  of  Iron,  The.     Ethel  M.  Dell. 

Bat  Wing.     Sax  Rohmer. 

Beasts  of  Tarzan,  The.    Edgar  Rice  Burroughs. 

Beautiful  and  Damned.  The.    F.  Scott  Fitzgerald. 

Beauty.     Rupert  Hughes. 

Behind  Locked  Doors.     Ernest  M.  Poate. 

Bella  Donna.     Robert  Hichens.  (Photoplay  Ed.), 

Beloved  Traitor,  The.     Frank  L.  Packard. 

Beloved  Vagabond,  The.     Wm.  J.  Locke. 

Beloved  Woman,  The.    Kathleen  Norris. 

Beltane  the  Smith.    Jeffery  Farnol. 

Betrayal^  The.     E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

Beyond  the  Frontier.     Randall  Parrish. 

Big  Timber.     Bertrand  W.  Sinclair. 

Black  Bartlemy's  Treasure.     Jeffery  Farnd. 

Black  Buttes.     Clarence  E.  Mulford. 


VB"  3994  f 


f!?18903 


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